tower
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "tower", 5-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 "tower" 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 "tower" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
tower is aEnglishnoun. It means: A tall, narrow structure (significantly taller than it is wide, either standing alone or forming part of a larger structure. Pronounced /ˈtaʊ.ə(ɹ)/. It ranks #3,031 in English word frequency. Often confused with town and towns.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tower |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtaʊ.ə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,031 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tower is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈtaʊ.ə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,031 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for tower, with forms such as "otwer", "toewr", and "towerr". 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, "town", "towns", "Tyler", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tour, tur, tor, from Old English tūr, tor, torr ("tower; rock"; > English tor) and Old French tour, toer, tor; both from Latin turris (“a tower”), Ancient Greek τύρρις (túrrhis) (Hesychius), τύρσις (túrsis). Compare Scots tour, towr, tow… 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 tower, spelled T-O-W-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A tall, narrow structure (significantly taller than it is wide, either standing alone or forming part of a larger structure.
- 2A tall, narrow structure (significantly taller than it is wide, either standing alone or forming part of a larger structure.
- 3A tall, narrow structure (significantly taller than it is wide, either standing alone or forming part of a larger structure.
- 4A tall, narrow structure (significantly taller than it is wide, either standing alone or forming part of a larger structure.
- 5A tall, narrow structure (significantly taller than it is wide, either standing alone or forming part of a larger structure.
- 6An item of various kinds, such as a computer case, that is higher than it is wide.
- 7A strong refuge; a defence.
- 8Each of a set of information technology concerns within a business, which are treated separately so that they can be handled by different providers.
- 9The sixteenth named (trump or Major Arcana) card in many Tarot decks, usually deemed an ill omen.
- 10The nineteenth Lenormand card, representing structure, bureaucracy, stability and loneliness.
- 11A group of giraffes.
- 12A metal stand used as a pivot to support a punty at a furnace.
- 13A tall fashionable headdress worn in the time of King William III and Queen Anne.
- 14High flight; elevation.
Etymology
From Middle English tour, tur, tor, from Old English tūr, tor, torr ("tower; rock"; > English tor) and Old French tour, toer, tor; both from Latin turris (“a tower”), Ancient Greek τύρρις (túrrhis) (Hesychius), τύρσις (túrsis). Compare Scots tour, towr, towre (“tower”), West Frisian toer (“tower”), Dutch toren (“tower”), German Turm (“tower”), Danish tårn (“tower”), Swedish torn (“tower”), Icelandic turn (“tower”), Welsh tŵr. Doublet of tor, tourelle, and turret.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: otwer,toewr,towerr,towre,towwer,ttower,twoer
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for tower
Misspelling Variants of "tower"
Frequency rank: #3,031 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: