sag
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 "sag", 3-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 "sag" 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 "sag" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sag is aEnglishnoun. It means: The state of sinking or bending; a droop. Pronounced /sæɡ/. Often confused with so and se.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sag |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sæɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #21,052 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sag is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sæɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #21,052 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.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for sag in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "so", "se", "SC", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From late Middle English saggen, probably of North Germanic/Scandinavian/Old Norse origin, akin to Old Norse sokkva (“to sink”), from a denasalized derivative of Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną (“to sink”). Compare Norwegian Nynorsk sagga (“move slowly”)); probabl… 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 sag, spelled S-A-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The state of sinking or bending; a droop.
- 2The difference in elevation of a wire, cable, chain or rope suspended between two consecutive points.
- 3The difference in height or depth between the vertex and the rim of a curved surface, specifically used for optical elements such as a mirror or lens.
- 4A place where the surface (of a seat, the earth, etc) sinks or droops, like a depression or a dip in a ridge.
Etymology
From late Middle English saggen, probably of North Germanic/Scandinavian/Old Norse origin, akin to Old Norse sokkva (“to sink”), from a denasalized derivative of Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną (“to sink”). Compare Norwegian Nynorsk sagga (“move slowly”)); probably akin to Danish and Norwegian sakke, Swedish sacka, Icelandic sakka. Compare also Dutch zakken and German sacken (from Low German).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #21,052 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: