uvula
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 "uvula", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "uvula" 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 "uvula" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
uvula is aEnglishnoun. It means: Ellipsis of palatine uvula, the fleshy appendage that hangs from the back of the soft palate, that closes the nasopharynx during swallowing. Pronounced /ˈjuː.vjʊl.ə/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | uvula |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈjuː.vjʊl.ə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #97,676 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for uvula is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈjuː.vjʊl.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #97,676 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for uvula in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.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 Late Latin ūvula, diminutive of ūva (“grape”). 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 uvula, spelled U-V-U-L-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Ellipsis of palatine uvula, the fleshy appendage that hangs from the back of the soft palate, that closes the nasopharynx during swallowing.
- 2the slight elevation in the mucous membrane immediately behind the internal urethral orifice of the urinary bladder, caused by the middle lobe of the prostate
- 3an object so suspended inside a bell that it may hit the bell and cause it to ring; a clapper
Etymology
Borrowed from Late Latin ūvula, diminutive of ūva (“grape”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #97,676 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter U in our English index: