shield
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "shield", 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 "shield" 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 "shield" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
shield is aEnglishnoun. It means: Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection. Pronounced /ˈʃiːld/. It ranks #4,333 in English word frequency. Often confused with shred and shill.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shield |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈʃiːld/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #4,333 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shield is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʃiːld/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,333 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for shield, with forms such as "hsield", "sheild", and "shhield". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "shred", "shill", "spiel", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English scheld, shelde, from Old English scield (“shield”), from Proto-West Germanic *skeldu, from Proto-Germanic *skelduz (“shield”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“cut, split”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian skyld (“shield”), Bavari… 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 shield, spelled S-H-I-E-L-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection.
- 2Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection.
- 3Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection.
- 4Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection.
- 5Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection.
- 6A shape like that of a shield; usually, an inverted triangle with sides that curve inward to form a pointed bottom, commonly used for police identifications and company logos.
- 7A shape like that of a shield; usually, an inverted triangle with sides that curve inward to form a pointed bottom, commonly used for police identifications and company logos.
- 8A shape like that of a shield; usually, an inverted triangle with sides that curve inward to form a pointed bottom, commonly used for police identifications and company logos.
- 9A shape like that of a shield; usually, an inverted triangle with sides that curve inward to form a pointed bottom, commonly used for police identifications and company logos.
- 10A shape like that of a shield; usually, an inverted triangle with sides that curve inward to form a pointed bottom, commonly used for police identifications and company logos.
- 11A shape like that of a shield; usually, an inverted triangle with sides that curve inward to form a pointed bottom, commonly used for police identifications and company logos.
- 12A large expanse of exposed stable Precambrian rock.
- 13A large expanse of exposed stable Precambrian rock.
- 14A place with a toilet seat: an outhouse; a lavatory.
- 15Parts at the front and back of a vehicle which are meant to absorb the impact of a collision
Etymology
From Middle English scheld, shelde, from Old English scield (“shield”), from Proto-West Germanic *skeldu, from Proto-Germanic *skelduz (“shield”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“cut, split”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian skyld (“shield”), Bavarian Schuid (“shield”), Dutch schild (“shield”), German and Low German Schild (“shield”), Luxembourgish Schëld (“shield”), Yiddish שילד (shild, “shield”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk skjold (“shield”), Elfdalian stjöld (“shield”), Faroese skjøldur (“shield”), Gutnish skiåld (“shield”), Icelandic skjöldur (“shield”), Swedish sköld (“shield”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌹𐌻𐌳𐌿𐍃 (skildus, “shield”). Compare Breton skoed (“shield”), Irish sciath (“shield”), Scottish Gaelic sgiath (“shield”), Latin scūtum (“shield”), Latgalian škīda (“shield”), Lithuanian skydas (“shield”), Belarusian шчыт (ščyt, “shield”), Bulgarian, Russian, and Ukrainian щит (ščyt, “shield”), Czech and Slovak štít (“shield”), Macedonian штит (štit, “shield”), Polish szczyt (“shield”), Serbo-Croatian штит, štit, ščit (“shield”), Slovene ščit (“shield”), from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to dissect, split”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsield,sheild,shhield,shiedl,shieldd,shielld,shiled,siheld,sshield
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shield
Misspelling Variants of "shield"
Frequency rank: #4,333 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: