society
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "society", 7-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 "society" 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 "society" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
society is aEnglishnoun. It means: A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms. Pronounced /səˈsaɪ.ə.ti/. It ranks #700 in English word frequency. Often confused with soviet and socket.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | society |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /səˈsaɪ.ə.ti/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #700 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for society is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /səˈsaɪ.ə.ti/. Corpus data places it at rank #700 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for society, with forms such as "osciety", "scoiety", and "socciety". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "soviet", "socket", "societal", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *sokʷéh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ṓy Proto-Indo-European *sokʷh₂ṓy Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Indo-European *sokʷyós Proto-Italic *sokjos Lati… 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 society, spelled S-O-C-I-E-T-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms.
- 2A group of people who meet from time to time to engage in a common interest; an association or organization.
- 3The sum total of all voluntary interrelations between individuals.
- 4The people of one’s country or community taken as a whole.
- 5High society.
- 6A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine and act toward a common goal.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *sokʷéh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ṓy Proto-Indo-European *sokʷh₂ṓy Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Indo-European *sokʷyós Proto-Italic *sokjos Latin sokios Latin socius Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts Latin -tās Latin societāslbor. Old French societé Middle French societébor. English society Borrowed from Middle French societé, from Old French societé, from Latin societās, societātem (“fellowship, association, alliance, union, community”), from socius (“associated, allied; partner, companion, ally”), from Proto-Indo-European *sokʷ-yo- (“companion”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to follow”). First attested in the 1530s.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: osciety,scoiety,socciety,soceity,societty,societyy,socieyt,socitey,soicety,ssociety
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for society
Misspelling Variants of "society"
Frequency rank: #700 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "society"?
What does "society" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "society"?
How do you pronounce "society"?
What is the origin of the word "society"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: