quincunx
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "quincunx", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "quincunx" 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 "quincunx" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
quincunx is aEnglishnoun. It means: An arrangement of five units with four forming the corners of a square and the fifth at the centre of the square, a pattern corresponding to the five-spot on dice, playing cards, or dominoes. Pronounced /ˈkwɪŋkʌŋks/.
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See how quincunx compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | quincunx |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkwɪŋkʌŋks/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for quincunx is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkwɪŋkʌŋks/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for quincunx in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.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: Borrowed from Latin quīncunx. 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 quincunx, spelled Q-U-I-N-C-U-N-X, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An arrangement of five units with four forming the corners of a square and the fifth at the centre of the square, a pattern corresponding to the five-spot on dice, playing cards, or dominoes.
- 2An angle of five-twelfths of a circle, or 150°, between two objects.
- 3A Galton board.
- 4A bronze coin minted during the Roman Republic, valued at five-twelfths of an as.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin quīncunx.
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter Q in our English index: