rich
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 "rich", 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 "rich" 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 "rich" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
rich is anEnglishadj. It means: Wealthy: having a lot of money and possessions. Pronounced /ɹɪt͡ʃ/. It ranks #1,318 in English word frequency. Often confused with rid and Rio.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rich |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ɹɪt͡ʃ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,318 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for rich is 4 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹɪt͡ʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,318 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 14 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 rich, with forms such as "irch", "rcih", and "ricch". 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, "rid", "Rio", "rip", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English riche (“strong, powerful, rich”), from Old English rīċe (“powerful, mighty, great, high-ranking, rich, wealthy, strong, potent”), from Proto-West Germanic *rīkī (“powerful, rich”), from Proto-Germanic *rīkijaz (“kingly, powerful, rich”),… 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 rich, spelled R-I-C-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Wealthy: having a lot of money and possessions.
- 2Having an intense fatty or sugary flavour.
- 3Remunerative.
- 4Plentiful, abounding, abundant, fulfilling.
- 5Yielding large returns; productive or fertile; fruitful.
- 6Composed of valuable or costly materials or ingredients; procured at great outlay; highly valued; precious; sumptuous; costly.
- 7Not faint or delicate; vivid.
- 8Very amusing.
- 9Ridiculous, absurd, outrageous, preposterous, especially in a galling, hypocritical, or brazen way.
- 10Pornographic; titillating.
- 11Elaborate, having complex formatting, multimedia, or depth of interaction.
- 12Of a solute-solvent solution: not weak (not diluted); of strong concentration.
- 13Of a solute-solvent solution: not weak (not diluted); of strong concentration.
- 14Trading at a price level which is high relative to historical trends, a similar asset, or (for derivatives) a theoretical value.
Etymology
From Middle English riche (“strong, powerful, rich”), from Old English rīċe (“powerful, mighty, great, high-ranking, rich, wealthy, strong, potent”), from Proto-West Germanic *rīkī (“powerful, rich”), from Proto-Germanic *rīkijaz (“kingly, powerful, rich”), from Proto-Germanic *rīks (“king, ruler”), an early borrowing from Proto-Celtic *rīxs, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs. Reinforced by Old French riche, from the same West Germanic source.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: irch,rcih,ricch,richh,rihc,rrich
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for rich
Misspelling Variants of "rich"
Frequency rank: #1,318 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: