shape
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "shape", 5-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 "shape" 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 "shape" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
shape is aEnglishnoun. It means: The status or condition of something Pronounced /ʃeɪp/. It ranks #1,967 in English word frequency. Often confused with she and ship.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shape |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃeɪp/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,967 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shape is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃeɪp/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,967 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for shape, with forms such as "hsape", "sahpe", and "shaep". 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, "she", "ship", "shop", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English shap, schape, from Old English ġesceap (“shape, form, created being, creature, creation, dispensation, fate, condition, sex, gender, genitalia”), from Proto-West Germanic *ga- + *skap, from Proto-Germanic *ga- + *skapą (“shape, nature, c… 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 shape, spelled S-H-A-P-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The status or condition of something
- 2Condition of personal health, especially muscular health.
- 3A graphical representation of an object's form or its external boundary, outline, or external surface.
- 4Form; formation.
- 5A geometric figure defined by its surfaces, lines, and angles, existing in 2D or 3D
- 6A rolled or hammered piece, such as a bar, beam, angle iron, etc., having a cross section different from merchant bar.
- 7A piece which has been roughly forged nearly to the form it will receive when completely forged or fitted.
- 8A mould for making blancmange, jelly, etc., or a piece of such food formed moulded into a particular shape.
- 9A loaded die.
- 10In the Hack programming language, a group of data fields each of which has a name and a data type.
Etymology
From Middle English shap, schape, from Old English ġesceap (“shape, form, created being, creature, creation, dispensation, fate, condition, sex, gender, genitalia”), from Proto-West Germanic *ga- + *skap, from Proto-Germanic *ga- + *skapą (“shape, nature, condition”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kep- (“to split, cut”). The verb is from Middle English shapen, schapen, from Old English scieppan (“to shape, form, make, create, assign, arrange, destine, order, adjudge”), from Proto-West Germanic *skappjan, from Proto-Germanic *skapjaną (“to create”), from the noun. The noun is cognate with Middle Dutch schap (“form”), Middle High German geschaf (“creature”), Icelandic skap (“state, condition, temper, mood”). The verb is cognate with Dutch scheppen, German schaffen, Swedish skapa (“create, make”), Norwegian Bokmål skape (“create”). Doublet of -ship.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsape,sahpe,shaep,shappe,shhape,shpae,sshape
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shape
Misspelling Variants of "shape"
Frequency rank: #1,967 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: