philadelphia
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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12 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "philadelphia", 12-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 "philadelphia" 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 "philadelphia" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
Philadelphia is aEnglishname. It means: The largest city in Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of coterminous Philadelphia County; the former capital of the United States. Pronounced /fɪləˈdɛlfi.ə/. It ranks #3,519 in English word frequency.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Philadelphia |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /fɪləˈdɛlfi.ə/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #3,519 |
| Misspellings tracked | 18 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Philadelphia is 12 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fɪləˈdɛlfi.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,519 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 18 documented wrong-spelling variants for Philadelphia, with forms such as "hpiladelphia", "phhiladelphia", and "phialdelphia". 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 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 Latin Philadelphia, from Ancient Greek Φιλαδέλφεια (Philadélpheia), from φιλάδελφος (philádelphos, “brother/sibling-loving”) + -εια (-eia, “-ia: forming placenames”), from the combining form of φῐλέειν (phĭléein, “to love”) + ἀδελφός (adelphós, “brothe… 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 Philadelphia, spelled P-H-I-L-A-D-E-L-P-H-I-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The largest city in Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of coterminous Philadelphia County; the former capital of the United States.
- 2Former name of Amman: the capital of Jordan.
- 3Former name of Alaşehir: a city, municipality, and district of Manisa Province, Turkey.
- 4A locale in the United States; named for the city in Pennsylvania.
- 5A locale in the United States; named for the city in Pennsylvania.
- 6A locale in the United States; named for the city in Pennsylvania.
- 7A locale in the United States; named for the city in Pennsylvania.
- 8A locale in the United States; named for the city in Pennsylvania.
- 9A village in Brandenburg, Germany; named for the city in Pennsylvania.
- 10A village in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England; named for the city in Pennsylvania (OS grid ref NZ3352).
- 11A suburb of Cape Town, South Africa.
Etymology
From Latin Philadelphia, from Ancient Greek Φιλαδέλφεια (Philadélpheia), from φιλάδελφος (philádelphos, “brother/sibling-loving”) + -εια (-eia, “-ia: forming placenames”), from the combining form of φῐλέειν (phĭléein, “to love”) + ἀδελφός (adelphós, “brother, sibling”). In reference to the city in Turkey, named for the loyal Attalus II Philadelphus of Pergamon. In reference to the city in Jordan, named for the incestuous Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt. In reference to the American city, named for the ancient towns as well as the Quaker William Penn's aim of fostering religious tolerance. Doublet of Filadelfia.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hpiladelphia,phhiladelphia,phialdelphia,philaddelphia,philadelhpia,philadellphia,philadelphai,philadelphhia,philadelpiha,philadelpphia,philadeplhia,philadlephia,philaedlphia,phildaelphia,philladelphia,phliadelphia,pihladelphia,pphiladelphia
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Philadelphia
Misspelling Variants of "Philadelphia"
Frequency rank: #3,519 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: