patrol
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "patrol", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "patrol" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "patrol" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
patrol is aEnglishnoun. It means: A going of the rounds along the chain of sentinels and between the posts, by a guard, usually consisting of three or four men, to insure greater security from attacks on the outposts. Pronounced /pəˈtɹəʊl/. It ranks #5,720 in English word frequency. Often confused with patron and petrol.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | patrol |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pəˈtɹəʊl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #5,720 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for patrol is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pəˈtɹəʊl/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,720 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for patrol, with forms such as "aptrol", "partol", and "patorl". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 14 confusable-pair relationships, "patron", "petrol", "Patton", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French patrouille, from Old French patrouille, patouille (“a night-watch”, literally “a tramping about”), from patrouiller, patouiller, patoiller (“to paddle or pudder in water, dabble with the feet, begrime, besmear”), from patte, pate (“paw, foot of … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is patrol, spelled P-A-T-R-O-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A going of the rounds along the chain of sentinels and between the posts, by a guard, usually consisting of three or four men, to insure greater security from attacks on the outposts.
- 2A movement, by a small body of troops beyond the line of outposts, to explore the country and gain intelligence of the enemy's whereabouts.
- 3The guards who go the rounds for observation; a detachment whose duty it is to patrol.
- 4The largest division of officers within a police department or sheriff's office, whose assignment is to patrol and respond to calls for service.
- 5Any perambulation of a particular line or district to guard it; also, the people thus guarding.
- 6A unit of a troop, usually defined by certain ranks or age groups within the troop, and ideally comprised of six to eight members.
Etymology
From French patrouille, from Old French patrouille, patouille (“a night-watch”, literally “a tramping about”), from patrouiller, patouiller, patoiller (“to paddle or pudder in water, dabble with the feet, begrime, besmear”), from patte, pate (“paw, foot of an animal”), from Vulgar Latin *patta (“paw, foot”), from Frankish *patta (“paw, sole of the foot”), from Proto-Germanic *paþjaną, *paþōną (“to walk, tread, go, step, pace”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pent-, *(s)pat- (“path; to walk”), a variant of Proto-Indo-European *pent-, *pat- (“path; to go”); see find. Cognate with Dutch pad, patte (“paw”), Low German pedden (“to step, tread”), German patschen (“to splash, smack, dabble, waddle”), German Patsche (“a swatter, beater, paw, puddle, mire”). Related to pad, path.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aptrol,partol,patorl,patrlo,patroll,patrrol,pattrol,ppatrol,ptarol
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for patrol
Misspelling Variants of "patrol"
Frequency rank: #5,720 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: