trust
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "trust", 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 "trust" 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 "trust" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
trust is aEnglishnoun. It means: Confidence in or reliance on some person or quality. Pronounced /tɹʌst/. It ranks #780 in English word frequency. Often confused with tut and tusk.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | trust |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tɹʌst/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #780 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for trust is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tɹʌst/. Corpus data places it at rank #780 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for trust, with forms such as "rtust", "trrust", and "trsut". 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, "tut", "tusk", "tuft", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English trust, trost (“trust, protection”). Long considered a borrowing from Old Norse traust (“confidence, help, protection”), from Proto-Germanic *traustą, but the root vocalism is incompatible, so trust has come to be considered a reflex of a… 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 trust, spelled T-R-U-S-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Confidence in or reliance on some person or quality.
- 2Dependence upon something in the future; hope.
- 3Confidence in the future payment for goods or services supplied; credit.
- 4That which is committed or entrusted; something received in confidence; a charge.
- 5That upon which confidence is reposed; ground of reliance; hope.
- 6Trustworthiness, reliability.
- 7The condition or obligation of one to whom anything is confided; responsible charge or office.
- 8The confidence vested in a person who has legal ownership of a property to manage for the benefit of another.
- 9An arrangement whereby property or money is given to be held by a third party (a trustee), on the basis that it will be managed for the benefit of, or eventually transferred to, a stated beneficiary; for example, money to be given to a child when he or she reaches adulthood.
- 10A group of businessmen or traders organised for mutual benefit to produce and distribute specific commodities or services, and managed by a central body of trustees.
- 11Affirmation of the access rights of a user of a computer system.
Etymology
From Middle English trust, trost (“trust, protection”). Long considered a borrowing from Old Norse traust (“confidence, help, protection”), from Proto-Germanic *traustą, but the root vocalism is incompatible, so trust has come to be considered a reflex of an unattested Old English *trust, from a rare zero-grade Proto-Germanic variant of the same root also attested in Middle High German getrüste (“host”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *deru- (“be firm, hard, solid”). Akin to Danish trøst (“comfort, solace”), Saterland Frisian Traast (“comfort, solace”), West Frisian treast (“comfort, solace”), Dutch troost (“comfort, consolation”), German Trost (“comfort, consolation”), Gothic trausti (“alliance, pact”). Doublet of tryst. More at true, tree.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: rtust,trrust,trsut,trusst,trustt,truts,ttrust,turst
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for trust
Misspelling Variants of "trust"
Frequency rank: #780 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: