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twilight

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

8 characters

Language

English

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "twilight", 8-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 "twilight" 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 "twilight" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

twilight is aEnglishnoun. It means: The soft light in the sky seen before the rising and (especially) after the setting of the sun, occasioned by the illumination of the earth’s atmosphere by the direct rays of the sun and their refl... Pronounced /ˈtwaɪˌlaɪt/. It ranks #9,415 in English word frequency.

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Key facts for twilight
PropertyValue
Headwordtwilight
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈtwaɪˌlaɪt/
Letters8
Frequency rank#9,415
Misspellings tracked13
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of twilight in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for twilight is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈtwaɪˌlaɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,415 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 13 documented wrong-spelling variants for twilight, with forms such as "tiwlight", "ttwilight", and "twiilght". 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 is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English twilight, twyelyghte, equivalent to twi- (“double, half-”) + light, literally ‘second light, half-light’. Cognate to Scots twa licht, twylicht, twielicht (“twilight”), Low German twilecht, twelecht (“twilight”), Dutch tw… 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 twilight, spelled T-W-I-L-I-G-H-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    The soft light in the sky seen before the rising and (especially) after the setting of the sun, occasioned by the illumination of the earth’s atmosphere by the direct rays of the sun and their reflection on the earth.
  2. 2
    The time when said light is visible; the period between daylight and darkness.
  3. 3
    Any faint light through which something is seen.
  4. 4
    The time when the sun is less than 18° below the horizon.
  5. 5
    An in-between or fading condition through which something is perceived.

Etymology

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English twilight, twyelyghte, equivalent to twi- (“double, half-”) + light, literally ‘second light, half-light’. Cognate to Scots twa licht, twylicht, twielicht (“twilight”), Low German twilecht, twelecht (“twilight”), Dutch tweelicht (“twilight, dusk”), German Zwielicht (“twilight, dusk”). Compare Old English twēone lēoht (“twilight”).

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: tiwlight,ttwilight,twiilght,twilgiht,twiligght,twilighht,twilightt,twiligth,twilihgt,twillight,twliight,twwilight,wtilight

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for twilight

Misspelling Variants of "twilight"

tiwlight8ttwilight9twiilght8twilgiht8twiligght9twilighht9twilightt9twiligth8
Misspelling Variants of "twilight"

Frequency rank: #9,415 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "twilight"?
"twilight" is spelled T-W-I-L-I-G-H-T. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈtwaɪˌlaɪt/.
What does "twilight" mean?
As a noun, "twilight" means: The soft light in the sky seen before the rising and (especially) after the setting of the sun, occasioned by the illumination of the earth’s atmosphere by the direct rays of the sun and their refl...
What are common misspellings of "twilight"?
Common misspellings include "tiwlight", "ttwilight", "twiilght", "twilgiht", "twiligght". The correct spelling is "twilight".
How do you pronounce "twilight"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "twilight" is /ˈtwaɪˌlaɪt/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "twilight"?
PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English twilight, twyelyghte, equivalent to twi- (“double, half-”) + light, literally ‘second light, half-light’. Cognate to Scots twa licht, twylicht, twielicht (“twilight”), Low German twilecht, twelecht (“twilight”)... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Nearby English words

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.