spur
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "spur", 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 "spur" 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 "spur" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
spur is aEnglishnoun. It means: A rigid implement, often roughly y-shaped, that is fixed to one's heel for the purpose of prodding a horse. Often worn by, and emblematic of, the cowboy or the knight. Pronounced /spɜː/. Often confused with su and sun.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spur |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /spɜː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #11,976 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for spur is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /spɜː/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,976 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 19 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for spur, with forms such as "psur", "sppur", and "spru". 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, "su", "sun", "sub", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English spure, spore, from Old English spora, spura, from Proto-West Germanic *spurō, from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (“to kick”). 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 spur, spelled S-P-U-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A rigid implement, often roughly y-shaped, that is fixed to one's heel for the purpose of prodding a horse. Often worn by, and emblematic of, the cowboy or the knight.
- 2A jab given with the spurs.
- 3Anything that inspires or motivates, as a spur does a horse.
- 4An appendage or spike pointing rearward, near the foot, for instance that of a rooster.
- 5Any protruding part connected at one end, for instance a highway that extends from another highway into a city.
- 6Roots, tree roots.
- 7A mountain that shoots from another mountain or range and extends some distance in a lateral direction, or at right angles.
- 8A spiked iron worn by seamen upon the bottom of the boot, to enable them to stand upon the carcass of a whale to strip off the blubber.
- 9A brace strengthening a post and some connected part, such as a rafter or crossbeam; a strut.
- 10The short wooden buttress of a post.
- 11A projection from the round base of a column, occupying the angle of a square plinth upon which the base rests, or bringing the bottom bed of the base to a nearly square form. It is generally carved in leafage.
- 12Ergotized rye or other grain.
- 13A wall in a fortification that crosses a part of a rampart and joins to an inner wall.
- 14A piece of timber fixed on the bilgeways before launching, having the upper ends bolted to the vessel's side.
- 15A curved piece of timber serving as a half to support the deck where a whole beam cannot be placed.
- 16A branch of a vein.
- 17A very short branch line of a railway line.
- 18A short branch road of a motorway, freeway or major road.
- 19A short thin side shoot from a branch, especially one that bears fruit or, in conifers, the shoots that bear the leaves.
Etymology
From Middle English spure, spore, from Old English spora, spura, from Proto-West Germanic *spurō, from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (“to kick”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psur,sppur,spru,spurr,sspur,supr
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for spur
Misspelling Variants of "spur"
Frequency rank: #11,976 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: