system
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "system", 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 "system" 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 "system" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
system is aEnglishnoun. It means: A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole. Pronounced /ˈsɪstəm/. It ranks #249 in English word frequency. Often confused with systems and systemic.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | system |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɪstəm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #249 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for system is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɪstəm/. Corpus data places it at rank #249 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.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 system, with forms such as "ssystem", "ssytem", and "sysetm". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "systems", "systemic", "stem", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Partly borrowed from Middle French sisteme, systeme, partly directly from its etymon Late Latin systēma (“harmony; musical scale; set of celestial objects; set of troops; system”), from Ancient Greek σύστημα (sústēma, “musical scale; organized body; whole m… 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 system, spelled S-Y-S-T-E-M, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 2A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 3A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 4A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 5A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 6A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 7A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 8A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 9A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 10A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 11A group or set of related things that operate together as a complex whole.
- 12A method or way of organizing or planning.
Etymology
Partly borrowed from Middle French sisteme, systeme, partly directly from its etymon Late Latin systēma (“harmony; musical scale; set of celestial objects; set of troops; system”), from Ancient Greek σύστημα (sústēma, “musical scale; organized body; whole made of several parts or members”), from σῠνίστημῐ (sŭnístēmĭ, “to combine, organize”) + -μᾰ (-mă, resultative suffix). σῠνίστημῐ is from σῠν- (sŭn-, “with, together”) + ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to stand”), from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand (up)”). Cognate with Dutch systeem, modern French système, German System, Italian sistema, Portuguese sistema, Spanish sistema. Doublet of systema.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ssystem,ssytem,sysetm,sysstem,systemm,systme,systtem,sytsem,syystem,ysstem
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for system
Misspelling Variants of "system"
Frequency rank: #249 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: