style
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 "style", 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 "style" 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 "style" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
style is aEnglishnoun. It means: Senses relating to a thin, pointed object. Pronounced /staɪl/. It ranks #818 in English word frequency. Often confused with Styx and styled.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | style |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /staɪl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #818 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for style is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /staɪl/. Corpus data places it at rank #818 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for style, with forms such as "sstyle", "stlye", and "sttyle". 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, "Styx", "styled", "stylus", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is derived from Middle English stile, stel, stele, stiel, stiele, stil, still, stille, styele, style, styill, styll, styyl (“writing tool, stylus; piece of written work; characteristic mode of expression, particularly one regarded as high quality; … 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 style, spelled S-T-Y-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Senses relating to a thin, pointed object.
- 2Senses relating to a thin, pointed object.
- 3Senses relating to a thin, pointed object.
- 4Senses relating to a thin, pointed object.
- 5Senses relating to a thin, pointed object.
- 6Senses relating to a thin, pointed object.
- 7Senses relating to a thin, pointed object.
- 8A particular manner of expression in writing or speech, especially one regarded as good.
- 9A particular manner of expression in writing or speech, especially one regarded as good.
- 10A particular manner of expression in writing or speech, especially one regarded as good.
- 11A particular manner of creating, doing, or presenting something, especially a work of architecture or art.
- 12A particular manner of creating, doing, or presenting something, especially a work of architecture or art.
- 13A particular manner of creating, doing, or presenting something, especially a work of architecture or art.
- 14A particular manner of creating, doing, or presenting something, especially a work of architecture or art.
- 15A particular manner of creating, doing, or presenting something, especially a work of architecture or art.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English stile, stel, stele, stiel, stiele, stil, still, stille, styele, style, styill, styll, styyl (“writing tool, stylus; piece of written work; characteristic mode of expression, particularly one regarded as high quality; demeanour, manner, way of life; person's designation or title; stem of a plant; period of time”) (compare semantic development to по́черк (póčerk, “handwriting, style”)), from Old French style, estile, stil, stile (modern French style), or from Medieval Latin stylus, both from Latin stilus (“pointed instrument, pale, spike, stake; writing tool, stylus; act of setting down in writing, composition; characteristic mode of expression, style; stem of a plant”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (“to be sharp; to pierce, prick, puncture, stab; to goad”). Doublet of stylus. The English word is cognate with Catalan estil (“engraving tool, stylus; gnomon; manner of doing something, style; fashionable skill, grace”), German Stiel (“handle; stalk”), Italian stilo (“needle, stylus; fountain pen; beam; gnomon; part of pistil, style”), Occitan estil, Portuguese estilo (“writing tool, stylus; manner of doing something, style”), Spanish estilo (“writing tool, stylus; manner of doing something, style; fashionable skill, grace; part of pistil, style”). The verb is derived from the noun.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sstyle,stlye,sttyle,styel,stylle,styyle,sytle,tsyle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for style
Misspelling Variants of "style"
Frequency rank: #818 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: