wind
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "wind", 4-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 "wind" 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 "wind" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
wind is aEnglishnoun. It means: Real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure. Pronounced /ˈwɪnd/. It ranks #1,547 in English word frequency. Often confused with won and wit.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | wind |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwɪnd/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,547 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for wind is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwɪnd/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,547 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 18 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for wind, with forms such as "iwnd", "widn", and "windd". 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, "won", "wit", "wis", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wynd, wind, from Old English wind (“wind”), from Proto-West Germanic *wind, from Proto-Germanic *windaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥tos (“wind”), from earlier *h₂wéh₁n̥ts (“wind”), derived from the present participle of *h₂weh₁- (… 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 wind, spelled W-I-N-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure.
- 2Air artificially put in motion by any force or action.
- 3The ability to breathe easily.
- 4News of an event, especially by hearsay or gossip.
- 5A tendency or trend.
- 6One of the four elements of the ancient Greeks and Romans; air.
- 7One of the five basic elements in Indian and Japanese models of the Classical elements.
- 8Flatus.
- 9Breath modulated by the respiratory and vocal organs, or by an instrument.
- 10The woodwind section of an orchestra. Occasionally also used to include the brass section.
- 11A woodwind instrument. Occasionally also used to describe a brass instrument.
- 12A direction from which the wind may blow; a point of the compass; especially, one of the cardinal points.
- 13Types of playing-tile in the game of mah-jongg, named after the four winds.
- 14A disease of sheep, in which the intestines are distended with air, or rather affected with a violent inflammation. It occurs immediately after shearing.
- 15Mere breath or talk; empty effort; idle words.
- 16A bird, the dotterel.
- 17The region of the solar plexus, where a blow may paralyze the diaphragm and cause temporary loss of breath or other injury.
- 18Ellipsis of wind power (“source of electricity”)
Etymology
From Middle English wynd, wind, from Old English wind (“wind”), from Proto-West Germanic *wind, from Proto-Germanic *windaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥tos (“wind”), from earlier *h₂wéh₁n̥ts (“wind”), derived from the present participle of *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”). Cognates Cognate with Yola weend, wyeene (“wind”), North Frisian win, winj (“wind”), Saterland Frisian Wíend (“wind”), West Frisian wyn (“wind”), Alemannic German wend, wind, winn, wénn (“wind”), Bavarian bint, Wind (“wind”), Cimbrian, Mòcheno bint (“wind”), Dutch wind (“wind”), German, German Low German Wind (“wind”), Luxembourgish Wand (“wind”), Yiddish ווינט (vint, “wind”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish vind (“wind”), Faroese, Icelandic vindur (“wind”), Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌽𐌳𐍃 (winds, “wind”), Latin ventus (“wind”), Welsh gwynt (“wind”), Sanskrit वात (vā́ta, “wind”), Russian ве́тер (véter, “wind”), perhaps Albanian bundë (“strong damp wind”). Doublet of athlete, vent, weather and nirvana.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: iwnd,widn,windd,winnd,wnid,wwind
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for wind
Misspelling Variants of "wind"
Frequency rank: #1,547 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter W in our English index: