pavilion
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Detailed reference entry for the English word "pavilion", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "pavilion" 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 "pavilion" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“pavilion” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,652 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,652
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
Dominant Wiktionary sense: An ornate tent.
Compare similar words
See how pavilion compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pavilion |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pəˈvɪljən/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #12,652 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pavilion” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for pavilion is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pəˈvɪljən/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,652 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for pavilion, with forms such as "apvilion", "paivlion", and "paviilon". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English pavilloun, from Anglo-Norman pavilloun, from Latin pāpiliōnem, form of pāpiliō (“butterfly, moth”) (due to resemblance of tent to a butterfly’s wings), of unknown origin. Doublet of papilio and papillon. Cognate to French pavillon (“pavi… 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 pavilion, spelled P-A-V-I-L-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An ornate tent.
- 2A light roofed structure used as a shelter in a public place.
- 3A structure, sometimes temporary, erected to house exhibits at a fair, etc.
- 4The building where the players change clothes, wait to bat, and eat their meals.
- 5A detached or semi-detached building at a hospital or other building complex.
- 6The lower surface of a brilliant-cut gemstone, lying between the girdle and collet.
- 7The cartiliginous part of the outer ear; auricle.
- 8The fimbriated extremity of the Fallopian tube.
- 9A flag, ensign, or banner.
- 10A flag, ensign, or banner.
- 11An ornate tent, used either as a charge or bearing, or surrounding a shield as or atop the mantling.
- 12A covering; a canopy; figuratively, the sky.
Etymology
From Middle English pavilloun, from Anglo-Norman pavilloun, from Latin pāpiliōnem, form of pāpiliō (“butterfly, moth”) (due to resemblance of tent to a butterfly’s wings), of unknown origin. Doublet of papilio and papillon. Cognate to French pavillon (“pavilion”) and papillon (“butterfly”), and similar terms in other Romance languages.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: apvilion,paivlion,paviilon,pavilino,pavilionn,pavillion,paviloin,pavliion,pavvilion,ppavilion,pvailion
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pavilion — measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Edit distance from "pavilion"
Frequency rank: #12,652 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “pavilion”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-A-V-I-L-I-O-N — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pəˈvɪljən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: