retouch
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "retouch", 7-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 "retouch" 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 "retouch" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
retouch is aEnglishverb. It means: To improve something (especially a photograph), by adding or correcting details, or by removing flaws. Pronounced /ɹɪˈtʌtʃ/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | retouch |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɹɪˈtʌtʃ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #76,273 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for retouch is 7 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹɪˈtʌtʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #76,273 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for retouch in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.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: From French retoucher. 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 retouch, spelled R-E-T-O-U-C-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To improve something (especially a photograph), by adding or correcting details, or by removing flaws.
- 2To colour the roots of hair to match hair previously coloured.
- 3To modify a flint tool by making secondary flaking along the cutting edge.
Etymology
From French retoucher.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #76,273 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: