rest
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "rest", 4-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 "rest" 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 "rest" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
rest is aEnglishnoun. It means: Relief from work or activity by sleeping; sleep. Pronounced /ɹɛst/. It ranks #594 in English word frequency. Often confused with RS and RT.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rest |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɹɛst/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #594 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for rest is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹɛst/. Corpus data places it at rank #594 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for rest, with forms such as "erst", "resst", and "restt". 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, "RS", "RT", "rev", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English rest, reste, from Old English ræst, from Proto-West Germanic *rastu, from Proto-Germanic *rastō, from Proto-Indo-European *ros-, *res-, *erH- (“rest”). Cognate with West Frisian rêst (“rest”), Dutch rust (“rest”), German Rast (“rest”), S… 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 rest, spelled R-E-S-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Relief from work or activity by sleeping; sleep.
- 2Any relief from exertion; a state of quiet and relaxation.
- 3Peace; freedom from worry, anxiety, annoyances; tranquility.
- 4A state of inactivity; a state of little or no motion; a state of completion.
- 5A final position after death. Also, death itself: "Not alone, not alone would I go to my rest in the heart of the love..." -- George William Russell ("Love")
- 6A pause of a specified length in a piece of music.
- 7A written symbol indicating such a pause in a musical score such as in sheet music.
- 8Absence of motion.
- 9A stick with a U-, V- or X-shaped head used to support the tip of a cue when the cue ball is otherwise out of reach.
- 10Any object designed to be used to support something else.
- 11A projection from the right side of the cuirass of armour, serving to support the lance.
- 12A place where one may rest, either temporarily, as in an inn, or permanently, as, in an abode.
- 13A short pause in reading poetry; a caesura.
- 14The striking of a balance at regular intervals in a running account. Often, specifically, the intervals after which compound interest is added to capital.
- 15A set or game at tennis.
Etymology
From Middle English rest, reste, from Old English ræst, from Proto-West Germanic *rastu, from Proto-Germanic *rastō, from Proto-Indo-European *ros-, *res-, *erH- (“rest”). Cognate with West Frisian rêst (“rest”), Dutch rust (“rest”), German Rast (“rest”), Swedish rast (“rest”), Norwegian rest (“rest”), Icelandic röst (“rest”), Old Irish árus (“dwelling”), German Ruhe (“calm”), Albanian resht (“to stop, pause”), Welsh araf (“quiet, calm, gentle”), Lithuanian rovà (“calm”), Ancient Greek ἐρωή (erōḗ, “rest, respite”), Avestan 𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬨𐬈 (aⁱrime, “calm, peaceful”), Sanskrit रमते (rámate, “he stays still, calms down”), Gothic 𐍂𐌹𐌼𐌹𐍃 (rimis, “tranquility”). Related to roo.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: erst,resst,restt,rets,rrest,rset
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for rest
Misspelling Variants of "rest"
Frequency rank: #594 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: