tip
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "tip", 3-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 "tip" 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 "tip" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
tip is aEnglishnoun. It means: The extreme end of something, especially when pointed; e.g. the sharp end of a pencil. Pronounced /tɪp/. It ranks #2,767 in English word frequency. Often confused with to and TV.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tip |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tɪp/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #2,767 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tip is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tɪp/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,767 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for tip in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "to", "TV", "TL", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tip, typ, tippe (“tip”), related to Saterland Frisian Tip (“tip”), West Frisian tippe, tip (“tip”), Dutch tip (“tip”), German Low German Tip, Tippel (“tip”), dialectal German Zipf (“tip”) (diminutive Zipfel used in Standard German), Dani… 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 tip, spelled T-I-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The extreme end of something, especially when pointed; e.g. the sharp end of a pencil.
- 2A piece of metal, fabric or other material used to cover the top of something for protection, utility or decoration.
- 3The end of a bow of a stringed instrument that is not held.
- 4A small piece of meat.
- 5A piece of stiffened lining pasted on the inside of a hat crown.
- 6A thin, boarded brush made of camel's hair, used by gilders in lifting gold leaf.
- 7Synonym of eartip (“part of earbuds”).
- 8the glans penis
Etymology
From Middle English tip, typ, tippe (“tip”), related to Saterland Frisian Tip (“tip”), West Frisian tippe, tip (“tip”), Dutch tip (“tip”), German Low German Tip, Tippel (“tip”), dialectal German Zipf (“tip”) (diminutive Zipfel used in Standard German), Danish tip (“tip”), Swedish tipp (“tip”), Icelandic typpi (“knob, pin, penis”). Compare also Saterland Frisian Timpe (“tip”), West Frisian timpe (“tip”), Old English tæppa (“tap, spigot”), Albanian thep (“tip, point”), Middle High German züpfel (“pointed end, tip”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #2,767 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: