sight
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 "sight", 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 "sight" 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 "sight" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sight is aEnglishnoun. It means: The ability to see. Pronounced /saɪt/. It ranks #2,808 in English word frequency. Often confused with sit and sign.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sight |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /saɪt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,808 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sight is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /saɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,808 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 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for sight, with forms such as "isght", "sgiht", and "sigght". 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, "sit", "sign", "Sikh", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English siȝht, siȝt, siht, from Old English siht, sihþ (“something seen; vision”), from Proto-West Germanic *sihti, equivalent to see + -t. Cognate with Scots sicht, Saterland Frisian Sicht, West Frisian sicht, Dutch zicht, German Low German Sic… 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 sight, spelled S-I-G-H-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The ability to see.
- 2The act of seeing; perception of objects by the eye; view.
- 3Something seen.
- 4Something worth seeing; a spectacle, either good or bad.
- 5A device used in aiming a projectile, through which the person aiming looks at the intended target.
- 6A small aperture through which objects are to be seen, and by which their direction is settled or ascertained.
- 7a great deal, a lot; frequently used to intensify a comparative.
- 8In a drawing, picture, etc., that part of the surface, as of paper or canvas, which is within the frame or the border or margin. In a frame, the open space, the opening.
- 9The instrument of seeing; the eye.
- 10Mental view; opinion; judgment.
Etymology
From Middle English siȝht, siȝt, siht, from Old English siht, sihþ (“something seen; vision”), from Proto-West Germanic *sihti, equivalent to see + -t. Cognate with Scots sicht, Saterland Frisian Sicht, West Frisian sicht, Dutch zicht, German Low German Sicht, German Sicht, Danish sigte, Swedish sikte.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: isght,sgiht,sigght,sighht,sightt,sigth,sihgt,ssight
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sight
Misspelling Variants of "sight"
Frequency rank: #2,808 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: