router
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 "router", 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 "router" 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 "router" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
router is aEnglishnoun. It means: Someone who routes or directs items from one location to another. Pronounced /ˈɹuː.tə(ɹ)/. Often confused with ruler and rover.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | router |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɹuː.tə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #15,046 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for router is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹuː.tə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,046 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for router, with forms such as "oruter", "rotuer", and "rouetr". 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, "ruler", "rover", "rower", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From route + -er. 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 router, spelled R-O-U-T-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Someone who routes or directs items from one location to another.
- 2Any device that directs packets of information using the equivalent of Open Systems Interconnection layer 3 (network layer) information. Most commonly used in reference to Internet Protocol routers.
- 3A device that connects local area networks to form a larger internet by, at minimum, selectively passing those datagrams having a destination IP address to the network which is able to deliver them to their destination; a network gateway.
- 4In integrated circuit or printed circuit board design, an algorithm for adding all wires needed to properly connect all of the placed components while obeying all design rules.
Etymology
From route + -er.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: oruter,rotuer,rouetr,routerr,routre,routter,rrouter,ruoter
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for router
Misspelling Variants of "router"
Frequency rank: #15,046 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: