portion
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "portion", 7-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 "portion" 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 "portion" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
portion is aEnglishnoun. It means: An allocated amount. Pronounced /ˈpoɹʃən/. It ranks #2,848 in English word frequency. Often confused with Porto and potion.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | portion |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpoɹʃən/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #2,848 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for portion is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpoɹʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,848 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for portion, with forms such as "oprtion", "poriton", and "porrtion". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "Porto", "potion", "Portman", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English porcioun, borrowed from Old French porcion, from Latin portio (“a share, part, portion, relation, proportion”), akin to pars (“part”); see part. Compare proportion. 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 portion, spelled P-O-R-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An allocated amount.
- 2That which is divided off or separated, as a part from a whole; a separated part of anything.
- 3One's fate; lot.
- 4The part of an estate given or falling to a child or heir; an inheritance.
- 5A wife's fortune; a dowry.
Etymology
From Middle English porcioun, borrowed from Old French porcion, from Latin portio (“a share, part, portion, relation, proportion”), akin to pars (“part”); see part. Compare proportion.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: oprtion,poriton,porrtion,porsion,portino,portionn,portoin,porttion,potrion,pportion,protion
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for portion
Misspelling Variants of "portion"
Frequency rank: #2,848 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: