structure
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
9 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "structure", 9-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 "structure" 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 "structure" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
structure is aEnglishnoun. It means: A cohesive whole built up of distinct parts. Pronounced /ˈstɹʌk(t)ʃə(ɹ)/. It ranks #1,543 in English word frequency. Often confused with structured and structural.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | structure |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈstɹʌk(t)ʃə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #1,543 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for structure is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈstɹʌk(t)ʃə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,543 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 14 documented wrong-spelling variants for structure, with forms such as "srtucture", "sstructure", and "strcuture". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "structured", "structural", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French structure, from Latin structūra (“a fitting together, adjustment, building, erection, a building, edifice, structure”), from struere, past participle structus (“pile up, arrange, assemble, build”). Compare construct, instruct, destroy, etc. 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 structure, spelled S-T-R-U-C-T-U-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A cohesive whole built up of distinct parts.
- 2The underlying shape of a solid.
- 3The overall form or organization of something.
- 4A set of rules defining behaviour.
- 5Several pieces of data treated as a unit.
- 6Underwater terrain or objects (such as a dead tree or a submerged car) that tend to attract fish
- 7A body, such as a political party, with a cohesive purpose or outlook.
- 8A set along with a collection of finitary functions and relations.
Etymology
From Middle French structure, from Latin structūra (“a fitting together, adjustment, building, erection, a building, edifice, structure”), from struere, past participle structus (“pile up, arrange, assemble, build”). Compare construct, instruct, destroy, etc.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: srtucture,sstructure,strcuture,strructure,struccture,structrue,structture,structuer,structurre,strucutre,strutcure,sttructure,sturcture,tsructure
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for structure
Misspelling Variants of "structure"
Frequency rank: #1,543 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: