territory
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
9 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "territory", 9-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 "territory" 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 "territory" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
territory is aEnglishnoun. It means: A large extent or tract of land; for example a region, country or district. Pronounced /ˈtɛɹɪˌtɔɹi/. It ranks #2,505 in English word frequency.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | territory |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtɛɹɪˌtɔɹi/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #2,505 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for territory is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈtɛɹɪˌtɔɹi/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,505 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for territory, with forms such as "etrritory", "terirtory", and "teritory". 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 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: Inherited from Middle English territorie, from Latin territōrium. 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 territory, spelled T-E-R-R-I-T-O-R-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A large extent or tract of land; for example a region, country or district.
- 2One of three of Canada's federal entities, located in the country's Arctic, with fewer powers than a province and created by an act of Parliament rather than by the Constitution: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
- 3One of three of Australia's federal entities, located in the country's north and southeast, with fewer powers than a state and created by an act of Parliament rather than by the Constitution: Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory.
- 4A geographic area under control of a single governing entity such as state or municipality; an area whose borders are determined by the scope of political power rather than solely by natural features such as rivers and ridges.
- 5An area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against its conspecifics.
- 6The part of the playing field or board over which a player or team has control.
- 7A geographic area that a person or organization is responsible for in the course of work.
- 8A location or logical space which someone owns or controls.
- 9A market segment or scope of professional practice over which an organization or type of practitioner has exclusive rights.
- 10An area of subject matter, knowledge, or experience.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English territorie, from Latin territōrium.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etrritory,terirtory,teritory,terriotry,territorry,territoryy,territoyr,territroy,territtory,terrtiory,treritory,tterritory
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for territory
Misspelling Variants of "territory"
Frequency rank: #2,505 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: