umbrella
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "umbrella", 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 "umbrella" 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 "umbrella" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
umbrella is aEnglishnoun. It means: A cloth-covered frame used for protection against rain or sun. Pronounced /ʌmˈbɹɛl.ə/. It ranks #8,500 in English word frequency.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | umbrella |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʌmˈbɹɛl.ə/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #8,500 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for umbrella is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʌmˈbɹɛl.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,500 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for umbrella, with forms such as "mubrella", "ubmrella", and "umbbrella". 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: Borrowed from Italian ombrella (“parasol, sunshade”), from Late Latin umbrella (influenced by umbra (“shadow, shade”)), from Latin umbella, from umbra + -la (diminutive suffix). 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 umbrella, spelled U-M-B-R-E-L-L-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A cloth-covered frame used for protection against rain or sun.
- 2Anything that provides similar protection.
- 3Anything that provides similar overarching coverage of a range of concepts, purposes, groups, etc.
- 4A strategy in which five players in the offensive zone form an umbrella-shaped formation around the opposition's goal net.
- 5The main body of a jellyfish, excluding the tentacles.
- 6An umbrella-shaped reflector with a white or silvery inner surface, used to diffuse a nearby light.
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian ombrella (“parasol, sunshade”), from Late Latin umbrella (influenced by umbra (“shadow, shade”)), from Latin umbella, from umbra + -la (diminutive suffix).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: mubrella,ubmrella,umbbrella,umberlla,umbrela,umbrelal,umbrlela,umbrrella,ummbrella,umrbella
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for umbrella
Misspelling Variants of "umbrella"
Frequency rank: #8,500 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter U in our English index: