suborn
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "suborn", 6-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 "suborn" 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 "suborn" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
suborn is aEnglishverb. It means: To induce (someone) to commit an unlawful or malicious act, especially in a corrupt manner. Pronounced /səˈbɔːn/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | suborn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /səˈbɔːn/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for suborn is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /səˈbɔːn/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for suborn in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *upó Borrowed from Anglo-Norman suburner, subhorner, and Middle French suborner, subourner (“to induce (someone) to commit a crime (specifically perjury) or wrongdoing”) (modern French suborner (“to suborn; to bribe”)), and from its etymon Latin s… 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 suborn, spelled S-U-B-O-R-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To induce (someone) to commit an unlawful or malicious act, especially in a corrupt manner.
- 2To induce (someone) to commit an unlawful or malicious act, especially in a corrupt manner.
- 3To achieve (some result; specifically, perjury) in a corrupt manner.
- 4To procure or provide (something) secretly and often in a dishonest manner.
- 5To make use of (something), especially for corrupt or dishonest reasons.
- 6To aid, assist, or support (something).
- 7To furnish or provide (something).
- 8To substitute (a thing) for something else, especially secretly and often in a dishonest manner.
Etymology
PIE word *upó Borrowed from Anglo-Norman suburner, subhorner, and Middle French suborner, subourner (“to induce (someone) to commit a crime (specifically perjury) or wrongdoing”) (modern French suborner (“to suborn; to bribe”)), and from its etymon Latin subōrnāre, the present active infinitive of subōrnō (“to incite, instigate, suborn; to instruct one for a secret purpose; to adorn, dress; to equip, furnish, provide; to make one appear as (something)”), from sub- (prefix meaning ‘under’) + ōrnō (“to equip, furnish, provide; to adorn, decorate, ornament”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to put together, fit; to fix; to slot”)). Cognates * Catalan subornar * Italian subornare * Old Occitan subornar, sobornar * Portuguese subornar * Spanish subornar (obsolete), sobornar
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: