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petunia

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

7 characters

Language

English

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "petunia", 7-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 "petunia" 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 "petunia" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

petunia is aEnglishnoun. It means: Any of the flowering plants of genus Petunia, of which most garden varieties are hybrids. Pronounced /pəˈtʲuːni.ə/.

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Key facts for petunia
PropertyValue
Headwordpetunia
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/pəˈtʲuːni.ə/
Letters7
Frequency rank#54,395
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of petunia in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for petunia is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pəˈtʲuːni.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #54,395 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No misspelling variants are generated for petunia in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.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: Etymology tree Proto-Tupian *pe Proto-Tupi-Guarani *tɨm Proto-Tupi-Guarani *pe-tɨm Old Tupi petymabor. French pétun Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -iader. Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto… 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 petunia, spelled P-E-T-U-N-I-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any of the flowering plants of genus Petunia, of which most garden varieties are hybrids.
  2. 2
    A dark purple colour, like that of some petunia flowers.
  3. 3
    A homosexual.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Tupian *pe Proto-Tupi-Guarani *tɨm Proto-Tupi-Guarani *pe-tɨm Old Tupi petymabor. French pétun Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -iader. Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-íā Ancient Greek -ία (-ía)der. taxonomic name -ia taxonomic name Petunialbor. English petunia Learned borrowing from taxonomic name Petunia, from (now obsolete) French pétun (“tobacco”), from Old Tupi petyma (“tobacco”).

This word in other languages

Frequency rank: #54,395 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "petunia"?
"petunia" is spelled P-E-T-U-N-I-A. The IPA pronunciation is /pəˈtʲuːni.ə/.
What does "petunia" mean?
As a noun, "petunia" means: Any of the flowering plants of genus Petunia, of which most garden varieties are hybrids.
How do you pronounce "petunia"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "petunia" is /pəˈtʲuːni.ə/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "petunia"?
Etymology tree Proto-Tupian *pe Proto-Tupi-Guarani *tɨm Proto-Tupi-Guarani *pe-tɨm Old Tupi petymabor. French pétun Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -iader. Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index:

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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.