spindle
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "spindle", 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 "spindle" 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 "spindle" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
spindle is aEnglishnoun. It means: A rod used for spinning and then winding fibres (especially wool), usually consisting of a shaft and a circular whorl positioned at either the upper or lower end of the shaft when suspended vertica... Pronounced /ˈspɪndəl/. Often confused with spine and swindle.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spindle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈspɪndəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #25,590 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for spindle is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈspɪndəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #25,590 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 17 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for spindle, with forms such as "psindle", "sipndle", and "spidnle". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "spine", "swindle", "sprinkle", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English spyndel, spindle, spyndylle, from Old English spindle, spindel, alteration of earlier spinel, spinil, spinl (“spindle”), from Proto-West Germanic *spinnilu (“spindle”), equivalent to spin + -le. Cognate with Scots spindil, spinnell (“spi… 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 spindle, spelled S-P-I-N-D-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A rod used for spinning and then winding fibres (especially wool), usually consisting of a shaft and a circular whorl positioned at either the upper or lower end of the shaft when suspended vertically from the forming thread.
- 2A rod which turns, or on which something turns.
- 3A rotary axis of a machine tool or power tool.
- 4The axle of a bottom bracket.
- 5Certain of the species of the genus Euonymus, originally used for making the spindles used for spinning wool.
- 6An upright spike for holding paper documents by skewering.
- 7The fusee of a watch.
- 8Any long and slender stalk resembling a spindle from Euonymus.
- 9A yarn measure containing, in cotton yarn, 15,120 yards; in linen yarn, 14,400 yards.
- 10A solid generated by the revolution of a curved line about its base or double ordinate or chord.
- 11Any marine univalve shell of the genus Tibia; a spindle stromb.
- 12Any marine gastropod with a spindle-shaped shell formerly in one of the three invalid genera called Fusus.
- 13A cytoskeletal structure formed during mitosis.
- 14A dragonfly.
- 15A plastic container for packaging optical discs such as CDs or DVDs, having a central column that passes through the central holes in the discs and keeps them in a stack.
- 16A muscle spindle.
- 17A sleep spindle.
Etymology
From Middle English spyndel, spindle, spyndylle, from Old English spindle, spindel, alteration of earlier spinel, spinil, spinl (“spindle”), from Proto-West Germanic *spinnilu (“spindle”), equivalent to spin + -le. Cognate with Scots spindil, spinnell (“spindle”), Dutch spindel ("spindle"; < Middle Dutch spille, spinle), German Spindel (“spindle”), Danish spindel (“spindle”), Swedish spindel (“spindle”). The dragonfly sense (noun sense 14) is a calque of Swedish slända (dragonfly/spindle); this word was introduced by New Sweden settlers.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psindle,sipndle,spidnle,spinddle,spindel,spindlle,spinlde,spinndle,spnidle,sppindle,sspindle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for spindle
Misspelling Variants of "spindle"
Frequency rank: #25,590 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: