padlock

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for padlock is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpæ̞dˌlɒk/. Corpus data places it at rank #42,806 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A detachable lock that can be used to secure something by means of a sliding or hinged shackle".

Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for padlock, with forms such as "apdlock", "paddlock", and "padlcok". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 2 confusable-pair relationships, "pollock", "paddock", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Etymologically, the entry records: From earlier pad lock (19th c.); Middle English padlock, padlokke, from pad-, of unknown origin, + lok (“lock”). Perhaps originally a lock for a pad (“gate”), or a gate opening to a path, or a lock for a basket or pannier, from UK dialect pad (“a pannier”). The correct English form is padlock, spelled P-A-D-L-O-C-K.