thought
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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7 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "thought", 7-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 "thought" 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 "thought" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
thought is aEnglishnoun. It means: A representation created in the mind without the use of one's faculties of vision, sound, smell, touch, or taste; an instance of thinking. Pronounced /θɔt/. It ranks #235 in English word frequency. Often confused with tough and trough.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | thought |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /θɔt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #235 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for thought is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /θɔt/. Corpus data places it at rank #235 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for thought, with forms such as "htought", "thhought", and "thoguht". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "tough", "trough", "through", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *teng-der. Proto-Germanic *þankijaną Proto-Germanic *þanhtaz Proto-West Germanic *þą̄ht Old English þōht Middle English thought English thought From Middle English thought, ithoȝt, from Old English þōht, ġeþōht, from Proto… 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 thought, spelled T-H-O-U-G-H-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A representation created in the mind without the use of one's faculties of vision, sound, smell, touch, or taste; an instance of thinking.
- 2The operation by which mental activity arise or are manipulated; the process of thinking; the agency by which thinking is accomplished.
- 3A way of thinking (associated with a group, nation or region).
- 4Anxiety, distress.
- 5The careful consideration of multiple factors; deliberation.
- 6A very small amount, distance, etc.; a whit or jot.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *teng-der. Proto-Germanic *þankijaną Proto-Germanic *þanhtaz Proto-West Germanic *þą̄ht Old English þōht Middle English thought English thought From Middle English thought, ithoȝt, from Old English þōht, ġeþōht, from Proto-West Germanic *þą̄ht, from Proto-Germanic *þanhtaz, *gaþanhtą (“thought”), from Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to think”). Cognate with Scots thocht (“thought”), Saterland Frisian Toacht (“thought”), West Frisian dacht (“attention, regard, thought”), Dutch gedachte (“thought”), German Andacht (“reverence, devotion, prayer”), Icelandic þóttur (“thought”). Related to thank, think.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: htought,thhought,thoguht,thougght,thoughht,thoughtt,thougth,thouhgt,thuoght,tohught,tthought
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for thought
Misspelling Variants of "thought"
Frequency rank: #235 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: