soil
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "soil", 4-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 "soil" 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 "soil" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
soil is aEnglishnoun. It means: A mixture of mineral particles and organic material, used to support plant growth. Pronounced /sɔɪl/. It ranks #3,527 in English word frequency. Often confused with son and sox.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | soil |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɔɪl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #3,527 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for soil is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɔɪl/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,527 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 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for soil, with forms such as "osil", "siol", and "soill". 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, "son", "sox", "sol", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English soile, soyle, sule (“ground, earth”), partly from Anglo-Norman soyl (“bottom, ground, pavement”), from Latin solium (“seat, chair; throne”), mistaken for Latin solum (“ground, foundation, earth, sole of the foot”); and partly from Old En… 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 soil, spelled S-O-I-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A mixture of mineral particles and organic material, used to support plant growth.
- 2The unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of land plants.
- 3The unconsolidated mineral or organic matter on the surface of the earth that has been subjected to and shows effects of genetic and environmental factors of: climate (including water and temperature effects), and macro- and microorganisms, conditioned by relief, acting on parent material over a period of time. A product-soil differs from the material from which it is derived in many physical, chemical, biological, and morphological properties and characteristics.
- 4Country or territory.
- 5That which soils or pollutes; a stain.
- 6A marshy or miry place to which a hunted boar resorts for refuge; hence, a wet place, stream, or tract of water, sought for by other game, as deer.
- 7Dung; compost; manure.
Etymology
From Middle English soile, soyle, sule (“ground, earth”), partly from Anglo-Norman soyl (“bottom, ground, pavement”), from Latin solium (“seat, chair; throne”), mistaken for Latin solum (“ground, foundation, earth, sole of the foot”); and partly from Old English sol (“mud, mire, wet sand”), from Proto-Germanic *sulą (“mud, spot”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid”). Cognate with Middle Low German söle (“dirt, mud”), Middle Dutch sol (“dirt, filth”), Middle High German sol, söl (“dirt, mud, mire”), Danish søle (“mud, muck”). Compare French seuil (“level; threshold”) and sol (“soil, earth; ground”). See also sole, soal, solum. For the sole and soil relation, compare typologically Russian по́чва (póčva) akin to подо́шва (podóšva).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: osil,siol,soill,soli,ssoil
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for soil
Misspelling Variants of "soil"
Frequency rank: #3,527 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "soil"?
What does "soil" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "soil"?
How do you pronounce "soil"?
What is the origin of the word "soil"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: