quorum
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "quorum", 6-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 "quorum" 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 "quorum" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
quorum is aEnglishnoun. It means: A select body of (usually eminent) justices of the peace, every member of which had to be present to constitute a deciding body; a member of this body. Later more generally: all justices collectively. Pronounced /ˈkwɔː.ɹəm/.
Compare similar words
See how quorum compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | quorum |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkwɔː.ɹəm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #26,566 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for quorum is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkwɔː.ɹəm/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,566 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.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for quorum, with forms such as "qourum", "qquorum", and "quormu". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.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: Inherited from Middle English quorum (c. 1426), from Anglo-Norman quorum, clipped from the Anglo-Latin wording of commissions in which certain persons were specially designated as members of a body by the words quorum vos unum esse volumus ad etc. (“of whom… 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 quorum, spelled Q-U-O-R-U-M, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A select body of (usually eminent) justices of the peace, every member of which had to be present to constitute a deciding body; a member of this body. Later more generally: all justices collectively.
- 2The minimum number of members required for a group to officially conduct business and to cast votes, often but not necessarily a majority or supermajority.
- 3Distinguished or essential members of any body; a select company.
- 4The minimum number of votes that a distributed transaction has to obtain in order to be allowed to perform an operation in a distributed system.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English quorum (c. 1426), from Anglo-Norman quorum, clipped from the Anglo-Latin wording of commissions in which certain persons were specially designated as members of a body by the words quorum vos unum esse volumus ad etc. (“of whom we want you to be one assigned to etc.”). Latin quōrum is the masculine genitive plural of the relative pronoun quī (“who”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: qourum,qquorum,quormu,quorrum,quorumm,quourm,quroum,uqorum
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for quorum
Misspelling Variants of "quorum"
Frequency rank: #26,566 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "quorum"?
What does "quorum" mean?
What are common misspellings of "quorum"?
How do you pronounce "quorum"?
What is the origin of the word "quorum"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter Q in our English index: