semblance
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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9 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "semblance", 9-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 "semblance" 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 "semblance" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
semblance is aEnglishnoun. It means: The outward appearance or form of a person or thing. Pronounced /ˈsɛmblən(t)s/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | semblance |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɛmblən(t)s/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #25,569 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for semblance is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɛmblən(t)s/. Corpus data places it at rank #25,569 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 15 documented wrong-spelling variants for semblance, with forms such as "esmblance", "sebmlance", and "sembalnce". 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 is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English semblaunce (“outward appearance, form; appearance without reality; condition or fact of being apparent; symbolic image; facial expression, countenance; conduct, manner; image, likeness; analogy, comparison”), from Anglo-Norman semblaunce… 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 semblance, spelled S-E-M-B-L-A-N-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The outward appearance or form of a person or thing.
- 2The outward appearance or form of a person or thing.
- 3The outward appearance or form of a person or thing.
- 4Followed by of: a person or thing that is seen; an apparition, a vision.
- 5Followed by of: a person or thing that looks similar to another person or thing; a likeness.
- 6Followed by of: a bare or mere appearance of something.
- 7A person's non-verbal behaviour or demeanour which shows their feelings, thoughts, etc., or which is faked to hide such true feelings, thoughts, etc.
- 8In the form make semblance: an act of appearing; an appearance, a manifestation; also, a false appearance, a pretence.
- 9The quality or state of being similar; likeness, resemblance, similarity.
- 10The chance of something happening; likelihood, probability.
Etymology
From Middle English semblaunce (“outward appearance, form; appearance without reality; condition or fact of being apparent; symbolic image; facial expression, countenance; conduct, manner; image, likeness; analogy, comparison”), from Anglo-Norman semblaunce and Old French semblance (modern French semblance), from semblant, the present participle of sembler (“to appear; to resemble, seem”), from Late Latin similāre, the present active infinitive of similō, a variant of Latin simulō (“to act or behave as if; to imitate, simulate”), from similis (“like resembling, similar to”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one; together”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). By surface analysis, semble + -ance (suffix forming nouns denoting conditions or states).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: esmblance,sebmlance,sembalnce,sembblance,semblacne,semblancce,semblanec,semblannce,semblence,sembllance,semblnace,semlbance,semmblance,smeblance,ssemblance
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for semblance
Misspelling Variants of "semblance"
Frequency rank: #25,569 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: