victim
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "victim", 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 "victim" 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 "victim" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
victim is aEnglishnoun. It means: One that is harmed—killed, injured, subjected to oppression, deceit, or otherwise adversely affected—by someone or something, especially another person or event, force, or condition; in particular Pronounced /ˈvɪktɪm/. It ranks #2,708 in English word frequency. Often confused with victor and victims.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | victim |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈvɪktɪm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #2,708 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for victim is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈvɪktɪm/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,708 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 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 victim, with forms such as "ivctim", "vcitim", and "vicctim". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "victor", "victims", "Vicki", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French victime, from Latin victima (“sacrificial animal”). 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 victim, spelled V-I-C-T-I-M, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1One that is harmed—killed, injured, subjected to oppression, deceit, or otherwise adversely affected—by someone or something, especially another person or event, force, or condition; in particular
- 2One that is harmed—killed, injured, subjected to oppression, deceit, or otherwise adversely affected—by someone or something, especially another person or event, force, or condition; in particular:
- 3One that is harmed—killed, injured, subjected to oppression, deceit, or otherwise adversely affected—by someone or something, especially another person or event, force, or condition; in particular:
- 4One that is harmed—killed, injured, subjected to oppression, deceit, or otherwise adversely affected—by someone or something, especially another person or event, force, or condition; in particular:
- 5One that is harmed—killed, injured, subjected to oppression, deceit, or otherwise adversely affected—by someone or something, especially another person or event, force, or condition; in particular:
- 6A living being which is slain and offered as a sacrifice, usually in a religious rite.
- 7A living being which is slain and offered as a sacrifice, usually in a religious rite.
Etymology
From Middle French victime, from Latin victima (“sacrificial animal”).
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ivctim,vcitim,vicctim,vicitm,victimm,victmi,victtim,vitcim,vvictim
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for victim
Misspelling Variants of "victim"
Frequency rank: #2,708 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter V in our English index: