ravel
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "ravel", 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 "ravel" 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 "ravel" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
ravel is aEnglishverb. It means: To entwine or tangle (something) confusedly; to entangle. Pronounced /ˈɹævəl/. Often confused with rel and reel.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ravel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈɹævəl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #41,333 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for ravel is 5 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹævəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #41,333 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for ravel, with forms such as "arvel", "raevl", and "ravell". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "rel", "reel", "Ravi", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is borrowed from Dutch ravelen, rafelen (“to tangle, become entangled; to fray; to unweave”) [and other forms]; further etymology uncertain. It has been suggested that the verb is originally derived from the noun, but the Oxford English Dictionary … 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 ravel, spelled R-A-V-E-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To entwine or tangle (something) confusedly; to entangle.
- 2Often followed by up: to form (something) out of discrete elements, like weaving fabric from threads; to knit.
- 3To unwind (a reel of thread, a skein of yarn, etc.); to pull apart (cloth, a seam, etc.); to fray, to unpick, to unravel; also, to pull out (a string of yarn, a thread, etc.) from a piece of fabric, or a skein or reel.
- 4To confuse or perplex (someone or something).
- 5Often followed by out: to undo the intricacies of (a problem, etc.); to clarify, to disentangle.
- 6To destroy or ruin (something), like unravelling fabric.
- 7In the APL programming language: to reshape (a variable) into a vector.
- 8Often followed by out: of a reel of thread or skein of yarn; or a thread on a reel or a string of yarn in a skein, etc.: to become untwisted or unwound.
- 9Often followed by out: of clothing, fabric, etc.: to become unwoven; to fray, to unravel.
- 10To become entangled or snarled.
Etymology
The verb is borrowed from Dutch ravelen, rafelen (“to tangle, become entangled; to fray; to unweave”) [and other forms]; further etymology uncertain. It has been suggested that the verb is originally derived from the noun, but the Oxford English Dictionary regards this as “very uncertain”, and instead regards the noun as having derived from the verb (compare Dutch rafel, raffel (“frayed thread”)). Ravel is a contranym having both the senses of tangling (verb senses 1.1, 1.2, 1.4.1, and 2.3; noun sense 1) and untangling (verb senses 1.3, 1.4.2, 1.4.3, 2.1, and 2.2; noun sense 2). It would appear that the tangling senses predate the untangling ones (as in Dutch), but this is uncertain because the first published uses of both senses of the words occur around the same time.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: arvel,raevl,ravell,ravle,ravvel,rravel,rvael
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for ravel
Misspelling Variants of "ravel"
Frequency rank: #41,333 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: