plunk
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "plunk", 5-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 "plunk" 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 "plunk" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
plunk is aEnglishnoun. It means: A brief, dull sound, such as the sound of a string of a stringed instrument being plucked, or the thud of something landing on a surface. Pronounced /plʌŋk/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | plunk |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /plʌŋk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #83,631 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for plunk is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /plʌŋk/. Corpus data places it at rank #83,631 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for plunk in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.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: Onomatopoeic; the noun is attested earlier than the verb. Noun etymology 1 sense 3 (“dollar; large sum of money”) may refer to the sound of a coin hitting a surface. As regards verb etymology 1 sense 1.4 (“(transitive) to drop, set, or throw (something, or … 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 plunk, spelled P-L-U-N-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A brief, dull sound, such as the sound of a string of a stringed instrument being plucked, or the thud of something landing on a surface.
- 2A (heavy) blow or hit.
- 3A dollar.
- 4A large sum of money.
Etymology
Onomatopoeic; the noun is attested earlier than the verb. Noun etymology 1 sense 3 (“dollar; large sum of money”) may refer to the sound of a coin hitting a surface. As regards verb etymology 1 sense 1.4 (“(transitive) to drop, set, or throw (something, or oneself) abruptly and/or heavily”) and etymology 1 sense 2.4 (“(intransitive) to drop, land, or set abruptly and/or heavily”), compare French plonquer (Picardy), a variant of plonger (“to plunge”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #83,631 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: