roster
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "roster", 6-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 "roster" 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 "roster" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
roster is aEnglishnoun. It means: A list of individuals or groups, usually for an organization of some kind such as military officers and enlisted personnel enrolled in a particular unit; a muster roll; a sports team, with the name... Pronounced /ˈɹɒs.tə/. It ranks #6,176 in English word frequency. Often confused with rote and route.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | roster |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɹɒs.tə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #6,176 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for roster is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹɒs.tə/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,176 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for roster, with forms such as "orster", "rosetr", and "rosster". 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, "rote", "route", "rover", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Dutch rooster (“gridiron, table, list”), from Middle Dutch roosten (“to roast”). More at roast. 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 roster, spelled R-O-S-T-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A list of individuals or groups, usually for an organization of some kind such as military officers and enlisted personnel enrolled in a particular unit; a muster roll; a sports team, with the names of players who are eligible to be placed in the lineup for a particular game; or a list of students officially enrolled in a school or class.
- 2A list of the jobs to be performed by members of an organization and often with the date and time that they are expected to perform them.
- 3A schedule or timetable setting out shift times and dates for each employee of a business.
- 4A bracketed list that shows the elements of a set.
Etymology
Borrowed from Dutch rooster (“gridiron, table, list”), from Middle Dutch roosten (“to roast”). More at roast.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: orster,rosetr,rosster,rosterr,rostre,rostter,rotser,rroster,rsoter
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for roster
Misspelling Variants of "roster"
Frequency rank: #6,176 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: