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PlainSpell

registry

/ˈɹɛd͡ʒɪstɹi/noun

registry is a noun meaning “A building in which things are registered or where registers are kept” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-G-I-S-T-R-Y and has 3 syllables, and it appears 5.9 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of registry is registries.

What does registry mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A building in which things are registered or where registers are kept.

  2. 2

    A record; an account; a register.

  3. 3

    The act of registering; registration.

  4. 4

    A database of configuration settings etc. maintained by the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce registry?

  • US /ˈɹɛd͡ʒɪstɹi/
  • Australia /ˈɹed͡ʒɪstɹi/

Registry has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-registry.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of registry

  • registries plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is registry?

Registry appears 5.9 times per million words in written English, the 10,028th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Registry in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
GermanRegistratur (building), Register (register), Registrierung (registration)
Frenchenregistrement (registration), registre, base de registre (database)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does registry come from?

A variant of registery, from Middle English regestery (“?a record book; ?a bookmark”), partly from Medieval Latin regesterium, registerium and probably also partly formed with -ery. Equivalent to register + -y.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).