pentecost
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
9 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "pentecost", 9-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 "pentecost" 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 "pentecost" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
Pentecost is aEnglishname. It means: Synonym of Shavuot (“a Jewish harvest festival which falls on the sixth day of Sivan in the spring, fifty days after the second day of the Passover when the omer (“sheaf of barley”) is offered; a c... Pronounced /ˈpɛntɪkɒst/. Often confused with Pentecostal.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Pentecost |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /ˈpɛntɪkɒst/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #35,455 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Pentecost is 9 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpɛntɪkɒst/. Corpus data places it at rank #35,455 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 14 documented wrong-spelling variants for Pentecost, with forms such as "epntecost", "penetcost", and "penntecost". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "Pentecostal", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English Pentecoste (“feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost; season of Pentecost, Whitsuntide; Jewish festival celebrating giving of the law to Moses”), from Old English Pentecosten, also influenced by Anglo-Norman pentecoste, Middle… 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 Pentecost, spelled P-E-N-T-E-C-O-S-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Synonym of Shavuot (“a Jewish harvest festival which falls on the sixth day of Sivan in the spring, fifty days after the second day of the Passover when the omer (“sheaf of barley”) is offered; a ceremony held on that day to commemorate the giving of the Torah (“first five books of the Hebrew scriptures”) to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai”).
- 2A festival which falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter which commemorates the event described in Acts 2 of the Bible when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles during the Jewish festival of Pentecost (proper noun sense 1), conferring on them the miraculous ability to explain the gospel in languages they did not know; also, the Sunday on which the festival is celebrated.
- 3In full day of Pentecost or Pentecost day: the day on which the event commemorated by the festival (proper noun sense 2) occurred; also, the event itself.
- 4Synonym of Whitsuntide (“the week beginning on Whitsunday; also, the weekend which includes Whitsunday”).
- 5The gift of the Holy Spirit to a Christian; also, the occurrence of this.
- 6A surname.
Etymology
From Middle English Pentecoste (“feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost; season of Pentecost, Whitsuntide; Jewish festival celebrating giving of the law to Moses”), from Old English Pentecosten, also influenced by Anglo-Norman pentecoste, Middle French pentecoste, and Old French pentecoste (“Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”) (modern French Pentecôte). Both the Old English and Old French words are derived from Ecclesiastical Latin Pentēcostē (“Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”), from Koine Greek πεντηκοστή (pentēkostḗ, “Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”), from Ancient Greek πεντηκοστή (pentēkostḗ, “fiftieth”), a noun use of the feminine form of πεντηκοστὸς (pentēkostòs, “fiftieth”, adjective), short for πεντηκοστὸς ἡμέρα (pentēkostòs hēméra, “fiftieth day”) (referring to the Jewish festival falling on the fiftieth day after the second day of the Passover), used in the Bible to translate Hebrew שָׁבוּעוֹת (shāvū'ót, “weeks”). Πεντηκοστὸς (Pentēkostòs) is derived from Proto-Hellenic *penkʷēkontstós, from *pénkʷe (“five”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe (“five; hand”)) + *-kontstós (suffix forming ordinal numbers from twentieth to ninetieth) (whence ; from Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥ (“ten”)). The surname is from Old French and Middle English Pentecost, a personal name perhaps given to one born on Pentecost; also an altered form of Pankhurst. Compare Pancoast.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: epntecost,penetcost,penntecost,pentceost,penteccost,pentecosst,pentecostt,pentecots,pentecsot,penteocst,penttecost,petnecost,pnetecost,ppentecost
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Pentecost
Misspelling Variants of "Pentecost"
Frequency rank: #35,455 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: