partition
/pɑɹˈtɪ.ʃən/
"partition" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“partition” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,758 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #11,758
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An action which divides a thing into parts, or separates one thing from another.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | partition |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɑɹˈtɪ.ʃən/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #11,758 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “partition” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for partition is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pɑɹˈtɪ.ʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,758 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for partition, with forms such as "aprtition", "parittion", and "parrtition". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "petition", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Recorded c.1430, "division into shares, distinction," from Middle English particioun, from Old French particion (modern partition), from Latin partitio, partitionem (“division, portion”), from partitus, the past participle of partire (“to split (up), part(i… The correct English form is partition, spelled P-A-R-T-I-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1An action which divides a thing into parts, or separates one thing from another.
- 2A part of something that has been divided.
- 3An approach to division in which one asks what the size of each part is, rather than (as in quotition) how many parts there are.
- 4The division of a territory into two or more autonomous ones.
- 5A vertical structure that divides a room.
- 6That which divides or separates; that by which different things, or distinct parts of the same thing, are separated; boundary; dividing line or space.
- 7A part divided off by walls; an apartment; a compartment.
- 8The severance of common or undivided interests, particularly in real estate. It may be effected by consent of parties, or by compulsion of law.
- 9A section of a hard disk separately formatted.
- 10A division of a database or one of its constituting elements such as tables into separate independent parts.
- 11A division of a data stream, such as a messaging queue or topic (often representing a unit of parallelism, and of fault tolerance).
- 12A collection of non-empty, disjoint subsets of a set whose union is the set itself (i.e. all elements of the set are contained in exactly one of the subsets).
- 13A musical score.
Etymology
Recorded c.1430, "division into shares, distinction," from Middle English particioun, from Old French particion (modern partition), from Latin partitio, partitionem (“division, portion”), from partitus, the past participle of partire (“to split (up), part(ition)”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aprtition,parittion,parrtition,partiiton,partision,partitino,partitionn,partitoin,partittion,parttiion,parttition,patrition,ppartition,pratition
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of partition - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “partition”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-A-R-T-I-T-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pɑɹˈtɪ.ʃən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “petition” - see the side-by-side comparison. partition vs petition
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.