skull
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 "skull", 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 "skull" 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 "skull" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
skull is aEnglishnoun. It means: The main bones of the head considered as a unit; including the cranium, facial bones, and mandible. Pronounced /ˈskʌl/. It ranks #6,183 in English word frequency. Often confused with Sul and soul.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | skull |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈskʌl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,183 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for skull is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈskʌl/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,183 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for skull, with forms such as "ksull", "skkull", and "sklul". 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, "Sul", "soul", "Sulu", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sculle, scolle (also schulle, scholle), probably from a dialectal form of Old Norse skalli (“bald head, skull”), itself probably related to Old English sċealu (“husk”), to Proto-Norse *ᛋᚲᚨᛚᛟ (*skalo), from Proto-Germanic *skallô; compare… 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 skull, spelled S-K-U-L-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The main bones of the head considered as a unit; including the cranium, facial bones, and mandible.
- 2These bones as a symbol for death; death's-head.
- 3The mind or brain.
- 4A crust formed on the ladle, etc. by the partial cooling of molten metal.
- 5The crown of the headpiece in armour.
- 6A shallow bow-handled basket.
- 7The head or master of a college.
Etymology
From Middle English sculle, scolle (also schulle, scholle), probably from a dialectal form of Old Norse skalli (“bald head, skull”), itself probably related to Old English sċealu (“husk”), to Proto-Norse *ᛋᚲᚨᛚᛟ (*skalo), from Proto-Germanic *skallô; compare Finnish skallo. Compare Scots scull, Danish skal (“skull”) and skalle (“bald head, skull”), Norwegian skalle, Swedish skalle and especially dialectal Swedish skulle. Related to Old Norse skoltr (“brow”), skolptr (“muzzle, snout”), akin to Icelandic skoltur (“jaw”), dialectal Swedish skult, skulle (“dome, crown of the head, skull”), Norwegian Nynorsk skult, skolt (“cranium, head (of a hammer); crag; hub”), Middle Dutch scolle, scholle, Middle Low German scholle, schulle (“clod, sod”), and Scots skult, skolt. Compare also Old High German sciula, skiula (“skull”). Possibly related to Latin celsus (“lofty, high, tall”), collis (“hill”). Also related to Old Norse skǫllóttr, Icelandic sköllóttur, Old Swedish skallotter, Swedish skallig, Danish skaldet, Norwegian skallet (“bald”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ksull,skkull,sklul,skul,sskull,sukll
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for skull
Misspelling Variants of "skull"
Frequency rank: #6,183 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: