sea
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "sea", 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 "sea" 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 "sea" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sea is aEnglishnoun. It means: A large body of salt water. Pronounced /siː/. It ranks #933 in English word frequency. Often confused with so and SI.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sea |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /siː/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #933 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sea is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /siː/. Corpus data places it at rank #933 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for sea 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", "SI", "SS", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English see, from Old English sǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *saiwi (“body of water”), from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz, itself either: * Derived from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ey-wo- (“to be fierce, afflict”). Related to Latin saevus (“wild, f… 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 sea, spelled S-E-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A large body of salt water.
- 2A large body of salt water.
- 3A large body of salt water.
- 4A lake, especially if large or if salty or brackish.
- 5A single wave; billow.
- 6The swell of the sea, especially when high or rough.
- 7Living or used in or on the sea; of, near, or like the sea.
- 8Anything resembling the vastness or turbulence of the sea in mass, size or quantity.
- 9A constant flux of gluons splitting into quarks, which annihilate to produce further gluons.
- 10A large, dark plain of rock; a mare.
- 11A very large lake of liquid hydrocarbon.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English see, from Old English sǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *saiwi (“body of water”), from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz, itself either: * Derived from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ey-wo- (“to be fierce, afflict”). Related to Latin saevus (“wild, fierce”), Tocharian B saiwe (“itch”), and Latvian sievs, sīvs (“sharp, biting”). More at sore. * Derived from Proto-Germanic *sīhwaną (“to percolate, filter”), from Proto-Indo-European *seykʷ-. Cognates Cognate with Yola zea, zee (“sea”), North Frisian See, sia, siie (“sea; lake”), Saterland Frisian See, Säi (“sea”), West Frisian see (“sea”), Cimbrian, Mòcheno sea (“lake”), Dutch zee (“sea”), German, German Low German See (“sea”), Limburgish Sië, zieë (“sea, ocean; lake”), Luxembourgish Séi (“lake”), West Flemish zji (“sea; seaside”), Danish sø (“sea; lake”), Faroese sjógvur (“sea; big wave”), Icelandic sjár, sjór, sær (“sea”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk sjø (“sea, ocean; lake”), Swedish sjö (“sea; lake; big wave”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌹𐍅𐍃 (saiws, “lake, sea; marshland”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #933 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "sea"?
What does "sea" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "sea"?
How do you pronounce "sea"?
What is the origin of the word "sea"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: