text
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "text", 4-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 "text" 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 "text" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
text is aEnglishnoun. It means: A writing consisting of multiple glyphs, characters, symbols or sentences. Pronounced /tɛkst/. It ranks #1,062 in English word frequency. Often confused with TX and TT.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | text |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tɛkst/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,062 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for text is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tɛkst/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,062 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for text, with forms such as "etxt", "tetx", and "textt". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TX", "TT", "tit", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English text, from Old French texte (“text”), from Medieval Latin textus (“the Scriptures, text, treatise”), from Latin textus (“style or texture of a work”), perfect passive participle of texō (“to weave”). Cognate to English texture. 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 text, spelled T-E-X-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A writing consisting of multiple glyphs, characters, symbols or sentences.
- 2A book, tome or other set of writings.
- 3Ellipsis of text message, a brief written message transmitted between mobile phones.
- 4Data which can be interpreted as human-readable text.
- 5A verse or passage of Scripture, especially one chosen as the subject of a sermon, or in proof of a doctrine.
- 6Anything chosen as the subject of an argument, literary composition, etc.
- 7A style of writing in large characters; also, a kind of type used in printing.
Etymology
From Middle English text, from Old French texte (“text”), from Medieval Latin textus (“the Scriptures, text, treatise”), from Latin textus (“style or texture of a work”), perfect passive participle of texō (“to weave”). Cognate to English texture.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etxt,tetx,textt,texxt,ttext,txet
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for text
Misspelling Variants of "text"
Frequency rank: #1,062 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: