reticence
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "reticence", 9-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 "reticence" 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 "reticence" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
reticence is aEnglishnoun. It means: Avoidance of saying or reluctance to say too much; discretion, tight-lippedness; (countable) an instance of acting in this manner. Pronounced /ˈɹɛtɪs(ə)ns/. Often confused with reticent and residence.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | reticence |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɹɛtɪs(ə)ns/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #47,304 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for reticence is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹɛtɪs(ə)ns/. Corpus data places it at rank #47,304 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 14 documented wrong-spelling variants for reticence, with forms such as "erticence", "reitcence", and "retcience". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "reticent", "residence", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is borrowed from Middle French réticence (“act of keeping silent, silence; reserve; aposiopesis”) (modern French réticence (“tight-lippedness, reticence”)), or derived from its etymon Latin reticentia (“act of keeping silent, silence; aposiopesis”)… 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 reticence, spelled R-E-T-I-C-E-N-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Avoidance of saying or reluctance to say too much; discretion, tight-lippedness; (countable) an instance of acting in this manner.
- 2A silent and reserved nature.
- 3Followed by of: discretion or restraint in the use of something.
- 4Often followed by to: hesitancy or reluctance (to do something).
- 5Synonym of aposiopesis (“an abrupt breaking-off in speech”).
Etymology
The noun is borrowed from Middle French réticence (“act of keeping silent, silence; reserve; aposiopesis”) (modern French réticence (“tight-lippedness, reticence”)), or derived from its etymon Latin reticentia (“act of keeping silent, silence; aposiopesis”), from reticēns (“keeping silent, reticent, silent; keeping secret, concealing”) + -ia (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Reticēns is the present active participle of reticeō (“to keep silent; to keep secret, conceal”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’) + taceō (“to be silent, keep quiet”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tak- or *tHk-). The English word is cognate with Italian reticenza (“reticence”), Portuguese reticência, Spanish reticencia (“reticence; reluctance”). The verb is derived from the noun.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: erticence,reitcence,retcience,reticance,reticcence,reticecne,reticencce,reticenec,reticennce,reticnece,retiecnce,retticence,rreticence,rteicence
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for reticence
Misspelling Variants of "reticence"
Frequency rank: #47,304 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: