prescription
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
12 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "prescription", 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 "prescription" 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 "prescription" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
prescription is aEnglishnoun. It means: A written order from an authorized medical practitioner for provision of a medicine or other treatment, such as (ophthalmology) the specific lenses needed for a pair of glasses. Pronounced /pɹəˈskɹɪp.ʃən/. It ranks #7,169 in English word frequency. Often confused with prescriptive.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | prescription |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɹəˈskɹɪp.ʃən/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #7,169 |
| Misspellings tracked | 20 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for prescription is 12 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pɹəˈskɹɪp.ʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,169 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 20 documented wrong-spelling variants for prescription, with forms such as "perscription", "pprescription", and "precsription". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "prescriptive", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Middle French, from Old French prescripcion, from Latin praescriptio (“preface; pretext; something written ahead of time”), from prae- (“pre-, before”) + scribere (“to write”) + -tio (“-tion, forming nouns”). Equivalent to prescribe + -tion. 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 prescription, spelled P-R-E-S-C-R-I-P-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A written order from an authorized medical practitioner for provision of a medicine or other treatment, such as (ophthalmology) the specific lenses needed for a pair of glasses.
- 2The medicine or treatment provided by such an order.
- 3Any plan of treatment or handling; the treatment or handling thus provided.
- 4Synonym of enactment, the act of establishing a law, regulation, etc., particularly in writing; an instance of this.
- 5The act of establishing or formalizing ideal norms for language use, as opposed to describing the actual norms of such use; an instance of this.
- 6An established time period within which a right must be exercised and after which it is null and permanently unenforceable.
- 7An established time period after which a person who has uninterruptedly, peacefully, and publicly used another's property acquires full ownership of it.
- 8Synonym of self-restraint, limiting of one's actions especially according to a moral code or social conventions.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French, from Old French prescripcion, from Latin praescriptio (“preface; pretext; something written ahead of time”), from prae- (“pre-, before”) + scribere (“to write”) + -tio (“-tion, forming nouns”). Equivalent to prescribe + -tion.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: perscription,pprescription,precsription,presccription,prescirption,prescripiton,prescripption,prescripsion,prescriptino,prescriptionn,prescriptoin,prescripttion,prescritpion,prescrpition,prescrription,presrciption,presscription,prrescription,prsecription,rpescription
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for prescription
Misspelling Variants of "prescription"
Frequency rank: #7,169 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: