sleeve
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 "sleeve", 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 "sleeve" 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 "sleeve" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sleeve is aEnglishnoun. It means: The part of a garment that covers the arm. Pronounced /sliːv/. It ranks #7,979 in English word frequency. Often confused with Steve and Steele.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sleeve |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sliːv/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,979 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 17 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sleeve is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sliːv/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,979 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 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 sleeve, with forms such as "lseeve", "seleve", and "sleeev". 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 17 confusable-pair relationships, "Steve", "Steele", "sneeze", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sleve, slefe, from Old English slīef and slīefe (“sleeve”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sleeuwe (“sleeve”), West Frisian slúf, Dutch sloof (“apron”), Low German sluve, dialectal German Schlaube. The Canadian sense of “measure smaller … 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 sleeve, spelled S-L-E-E-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The part of a garment that covers the arm.
- 2A (usually tubular) covering or lining to protect a piece of machinery etc.
- 3A protective jacket or case, especially for a record, containing art and information about the contents; also the analogous leaflet found in a packaged CD.
- 4A tattoo covering the whole arm.
- 5A narrow channel of water.
- 6Sleave; untwisted thread.
- 7A serving of beer smaller than a pint, typically measuring between 12 and 16 ounces.
- 8A long, cylindrical plastic bag of cookies or crackers, or a similar package of disposable drinking cups.
- 9A double tube of copper into which the ends of bare wires are pushed so that when the tube is twisted an electrical connection is made. The joint thus made is called a McIntire joint.
Etymology
From Middle English sleve, slefe, from Old English slīef and slīefe (“sleeve”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sleeuwe (“sleeve”), West Frisian slúf, Dutch sloof (“apron”), Low German sluve, dialectal German Schlaube. The Canadian sense of “measure smaller than a pint” is due to a former conflict between federal law and provincial law in British Columbia. According to federal law, a pint must be 20 imperial ounces (~568 ml), but according to provincial law at the time, the maximum individual serving size was 500 ml, so an individual portion could not be called a “pint” in British Columbia, and required a different term. The provincial law has been changed, allowing servings of up to 24 oz (~682 ml), but the term remains in use. The term sleeve itself for a cylindrical glass of beer is also found in the UK and Australia (as sleever), and may be due to stacked glasses resembling a sleeve.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lseeve,seleve,sleeev,sleevve,sleve,slevee,slleeve,ssleeve
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sleeve
Misspelling Variants of "sleeve"
Frequency rank: #7,979 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: