spine
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 "spine", 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 "spine" 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 "spine" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
spine is aEnglishnoun. It means: A series of bones situated at the back from the head to the pelvis of a human, or from the head to the tail of an animal, enclosing the spinal cord and providing support for the thorax and abdomen. Pronounced /spaɪn/. It ranks #7,983 in English word frequency. Often confused with spit and spun.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spine |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /spaɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #7,983 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for spine is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /spaɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,983 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for spine, with forms such as "psine", "sipne", and "spien". 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, "spit", "spun", "stone", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From late Middle English spyne, from Old French espine (French épine) or its source, Latin spīna (“a thorn; a prickle, spine; the backbone”). Doublet of spina. 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 spine, spelled S-P-I-N-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A series of bones situated at the back from the head to the pelvis of a human, or from the head to the tail of an animal, enclosing the spinal cord and providing support for the thorax and abdomen.
- 2A series of bones situated at the back from the head to the pelvis of a human, or from the head to the tail of an animal, enclosing the spinal cord and providing support for the thorax and abdomen.
- 3Something resembling a backbone, such as a ridge, or a long, central structure from which other structures radiate.
- 4The narrow, bound edge of a book that encloses the inner edges of the pages, facing outwards when the book is on a shelf and typically bearing the title and the author's and publisher's name.
- 5A pointed, fairly rigid protuberance or needlelike structure on an animal, shell, mushroom or plant. The botanical term technically refers to such a structure derived from a leaf or part of a leaf.
- 6The heartwood of trees.
- 7Ellipsis of dendritic spine.
- 8A linear payscale operated by some large organizations that allows flexibility for local and specific conditions.
- 9A tall mass of viscous lava extruded from a volcano.
- 10The stiffness of an arrow.
- 11A central part which supports a whole; core.
Etymology
From late Middle English spyne, from Old French espine (French épine) or its source, Latin spīna (“a thorn; a prickle, spine; the backbone”). Doublet of spina.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psine,sipne,spien,spinne,spnie,sppine,sspine
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for spine
Misspelling Variants of "spine"
Frequency rank: #7,983 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: