plot
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "plot", 4-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 "plot" 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 "plot" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
plot is aEnglishnoun. It means: The course of a story, comprising a series of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means. Pronounced /plɒt/. It ranks #2,588 in English word frequency. Often confused with pt and po.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | plot |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /plɒt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,588 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for plot is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /plɒt/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,588 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for plot, with forms such as "lpot", "pllot", and "plott". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pt", "po", "put", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English plot, plotte, from Old English plot (“a plot of ground”), from Proto-Germanic *plataz, *platjaz (“a patch”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Middle Low German plet (“patch, strip of cloth, rags”), German Bletz (“rags, bits, strip of la… 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 plot, spelled P-L-O-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The course of a story, comprising a series of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means.
- 2An area or land used for building on or planting on.
- 3A grave.
- 4A graph or diagram drawn by hand or produced by a mechanical or electronic device.
- 5A secret plan to achieve an end, the end or means usually being illegal or otherwise questionable.
- 6Contrivance; deep reach thought; ability to plot or intrigue.
- 7Participation in any stratagem or conspiracy.
- 8A plan; a purpose.
- 9Attractive physical attributes of a fictional character; assets.
Etymology
From Middle English plot, plotte, from Old English plot (“a plot of ground”), from Proto-Germanic *plataz, *platjaz (“a patch”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Middle Low German plet (“patch, strip of cloth, rags”), German Bletz (“rags, bits, strip of land”), and possibly Gothic 𐍀𐌻𐌰𐍄 (plat, “a patch, rags”). See also plat. See also complot for an influence on or source of noun sense 5. Noun sense 9 is a back-formation from for the plot.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lpot,pllot,plott,plto,polt,pplot
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for plot
Misspelling Variants of "plot"
Frequency rank: #2,588 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: