vector
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "vector", 6-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 "vector" 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 "vector" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
vector is aEnglishnoun. It means: A directed quantity, one with both magnitude and direction; the signed difference between two points. Pronounced /ˈvɛktə/. It ranks #7,301 in English word frequency. Often confused with veto and victor.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | vector |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈvɛktə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,301 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for vector is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈvɛktə/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,301 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for vector, with forms such as "evctor", "vcetor", and "vecctor". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "veto", "victor", "vendor", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from Latin vector (“carrier, transporter”), from vehō (“to carry, transport, bear”), also ultimately the root of English vehicle. The “person or entity that passes along an urban legend or other meme” sense derives from the disease sense. … 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 vector, spelled V-E-C-T-O-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A directed quantity, one with both magnitude and direction; the signed difference between two points.
- 2A directed quantity, one with both magnitude and direction; the signed difference between two points.
- 3A directed quantity, one with both magnitude and direction; the signed difference between two points.
- 4A directed quantity, one with both magnitude and direction; the signed difference between two points.
- 5A kind of dynamically resizable array.
- 6A kind of dynamically resizable array.
- 7A kind of dynamically resizable array.
- 8A carrier of a disease-causing agent.
- 9A carrier of a disease-causing agent.
- 10A carrier of a disease-causing agent.
- 11Forces, developments, phenomena, processes, systems, etc. which influence the trajectory of history (e.g. imperialism)
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin vector (“carrier, transporter”), from vehō (“to carry, transport, bear”), also ultimately the root of English vehicle. The “person or entity that passes along an urban legend or other meme” sense derives from the disease sense. The mathematics sense was coined by Irish mathematician and astronomer William Rowan Hamilton in 1846.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: evctor,vcetor,vecctor,vecotr,vectorr,vectro,vecttor,vetcor,vvector
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for vector
Misspelling Variants of "vector"
Frequency rank: #7,301 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter V in our English index: