valve
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 "valve", 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 "valve" 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 "valve" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
valve is aEnglishnoun. It means: A device that controls the flow of a gas or fluid through a space, such as a pipe, manifold, or plenum. Pronounced /ˈvælv/. It ranks #5,848 in English word frequency. Often confused with vile and vase.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | valve |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈvælv/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,848 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for valve is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈvælv/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,848 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 valve, with forms such as "avlve", "valev", and "vallve". 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, "vile", "vase", "vape", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English valve, from Latin valva (“double door, valve”). Doublet of valva. 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 valve, spelled V-A-L-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A device that controls the flow of a gas or fluid through a space, such as a pipe, manifold, or plenum.
- 2A device that controls the flow of a gas or fluid through a space, such as a pipe, manifold, or plenum.
- 3One or more membranous partitions, flaps, or folds, which permit the passage of the contents of a vessel or cavity in one direction, but stop or control the flow in the opposite direction.
- 4One of the leaves of a folding door or of a window sash.
- 5A vacuum tube.
- 6One of the pieces into which certain fruits naturally separate when they dehisce.
- 7A small portion of certain anthers, which opens like a trapdoor to allow the pollen to escape, such as in the barberry.
- 8One of the pieces or divisions of bivalve or multivalve shells.
- 9One of the two similar portions of the shell of a diatom.
Etymology
From Middle English valve, from Latin valva (“double door, valve”). Doublet of valva.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: avlve,valev,vallve,valvve,vavle,vlave,vvalve
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for valve
Misspelling Variants of "valve"
Frequency rank: #5,848 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter V in our English index: