uncle
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 "uncle", 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 "uncle" 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 "uncle" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
uncle is aEnglishnoun. It means: The brother or brother-in-law of one’s parent. Pronounced /ˈʌŋ.kl̩/. It ranks #3,342 in English word frequency. Often confused with UNLV and unite.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | uncle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈʌŋ.kl̩/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,342 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for uncle is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʌŋ.kl̩/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,342 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 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 uncle, with forms such as "nucle", "ucnle", and "unccle". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "UNLV", "unite", "undue", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwh₂os Latin avunculus Old French unclebor. Middle English uncle English uncle From Middle English uncle, borrowed from Anglo-Norman uncle and Old French oncle, from Vulgar Latin *aunclum, from Latin avunculus (“materna… 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 uncle, spelled U-N-C-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The brother or brother-in-law of one’s parent.
- 2The male cousin of one’s parent.
- 3Used as a fictive kinship title for a close male friend of one's parent or parents.
- 4Used as a title for the male companion to one's (usually unmarried) parent.
- 5A source of advice, encouragement, or help.
- 6A pawnbroker.
- 7An affectionate term for a man of an older generation than oneself, especially a friend of one's parents, by means of fictive kin.
- 8An older African-American male.
- 9Any middle-aged or elderly man older than the speaker and/or listener.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwh₂os Latin avunculus Old French unclebor. Middle English uncle English uncle From Middle English uncle, borrowed from Anglo-Norman uncle and Old French oncle, from Vulgar Latin *aunclum, from Latin avunculus (“maternal uncle”, literally “little grandfather”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂euh₂-n-tlo- (“little grandfather”), a dialectal diminutive of *h₂éwh₂ō (“grandfather, adult male relative other than one’s father”) (whence also Latin avus (“grandfather”)). Displaced native Middle English em (“uncle”) from Old English ēam (“maternal uncle”), containing the same Proto-Indo-European root, and Old English fædera (“paternal uncle”). Compare Saterland Frisian Unkel (“uncle”), Dutch nonkel (“uncle”), German Low German Unkel (“uncle”), German Onkel (“uncle”), Danish onkel (“uncle”). More at eam and eame.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: nucle,ucnle,unccle,uncel,unclle,unlce,unncle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for uncle
Misspelling Variants of "uncle"
Frequency rank: #3,342 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter U in our English index: