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tankie

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

6 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "tankie", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "tankie" 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 "tankie" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

tankie is aEnglishnoun. It means: A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who supported the Soviet Union's policy of crushing revolts in Hungary in the 1950s and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s by sending tanks into tho... Pronounced /ˈtæŋ.ki/.

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Key facts for tankie
PropertyValue
Headwordtankie
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈtæŋ.ki/
Letters6
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

tankie is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for tankie is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈtæŋ.ki/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No misspelling variants are generated for tankie in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.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: From tank + -ie (diminutive suffix). Sense 1 and, by extension, sense 2 were named for the tanks used by the Soviet Union against uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. 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 tankie, spelled T-A-N-K-I-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who supported the Soviet Union's policy of crushing revolts in Hungary in the 1950s and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s by sending tanks into those countries.
  2. 2
    A supporter of policies and actions by the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or other authoritarian socialist governments.
  3. 3
    A soldier from a tank regiment.
  4. 4
    A tank engine.

Etymology

From tank + -ie (diminutive suffix). Sense 1 and, by extension, sense 2 were named for the tanks used by the Soviet Union against uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "tankie"?
"tankie" is spelled T-A-N-K-I-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈtæŋ.ki/.
What does "tankie" mean?
As a noun, "tankie" means: A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who supported the Soviet Union's policy of crushing revolts in Hungary in the 1950s and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s by sending tanks into tho...
How do you pronounce "tankie"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tankie" is /ˈtæŋ.ki/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "tankie"?
From tank + -ie (diminutive suffix). Sense 1 and, by extension, sense 2 were named for the tanks used by the Soviet Union against uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.