sublime
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "sublime", 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 "sublime" 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 "sublime" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sublime is aEnglishverb. It means: Synonym of sublimate. Pronounced /səˈblaɪm/. Often confused with subside and subprime.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sublime |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /səˈblaɪm/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #15,522 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sublime is 7 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /səˈblaɪm/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,522 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for sublime, with forms such as "sbulime", "ssublime", and "subblime". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "subside", "subprime", "slime", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *upó Partly from the following: * From Middle English sublimen, sublime, sublyme (“to exalt, extol, glorify, honour; (alchemy) to refine (a substance) by vaporizing in a closed container; to obtain (a substance) by cooling vapour obtained through … 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 sublime, spelled S-U-B-L-I-M-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Synonym of sublimate.
- 2Synonym of sublimate.
- 3To raise (someone or an intangible thing) to a state of (especially moral or spiritual) excellence; to exalt.
- 4To cause (someone or something) to ascend; to raise (someone or something) to a high position.
- 5To cause (juice or sap) to rise in a plant.
- 6Especially of the sun: to heat (something) and cause vapours, etc., to rise from it.
- 7To purify (someone) from a bad influence or from sin.
- 8To raise (someone) to a high office or status; to dignify, to exalt.
- 9To raise (a physical thing) to a state of excellence; to improve.
- 10Synonym of sublimate.
- 11Synonym of sublimate.
- 12To become higher in quality or status; to improve.
Etymology
PIE word *upó Partly from the following: * From Middle English sublimen, sublime, sublyme (“to exalt, extol, glorify, honour; (alchemy) to refine (a substance) by vaporizing in a closed container; to obtain (a substance) by cooling vapour obtained through sublimation; to extract (a pure substance) from a mixture by sublimation; to sublimate (a substance)”), from Middle French sublimer, Old French sublimer (“to exalt, glorify, honour; to refine (a substance) by vaporizing in a closed container; of a substance: to undergo sublimation”) (modern French sublimer), and from its etymon Latin sublīmāre, the present active infinitive of sublimō (“to elevate, raise; to soar”) (compare Late Latin sublimō (“to elevate, raise; to exalt, glorify, honour; to sublimate, vaporize”)), from sublīmis (“elevated, raised; exalted, uplifted, sublime; elevated in style”) (from sub- (prefix meaning ‘under; up to’) + possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *Heh₃l- (“to bend”) (whence Latin līmen (“threshold”) and līmus (“askew; sideways”))) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). * From sublime (adjective). Cognates * Catalan sublimar * Italian sublimare * Old Occitan sublimar * Portuguese sublimar * Spanish sublimar
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sbulime,ssublime,subblime,subilme,subliem,sublimme,subllime,sublmie,sulbime,usblime
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sublime
Misspelling Variants of "sublime"
Frequency rank: #15,522 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: