wonder
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "wonder", 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 "wonder" 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 "wonder" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
wonder is aEnglishnoun. It means: A sense of awe, astonishment and curiosity, inspired by unexpected events, novel experiences and inexplicable circumstances, sometimes accompanied by surprise, shock or reverence. Pronounced /ˈwʌndə/. It ranks #1,258 in English word frequency. Often confused with worker and wooden.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | wonder |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwʌndə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,258 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 16 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for wonder is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwʌndə/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,258 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 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for wonder, with forms such as "ownder", "wnoder", and "wodner". 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 16 confusable-pair relationships, "worker", "wooden", "wooded", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wonder, wunder, from Old English wundor (“wonder, miracle, marvel”), from Proto-West Germanic *wundr, from Proto-Germanic *wundrą. Cognate with Scots wunner (“wonder”), West Frisian wonder, wûnder (“wonder, miracle”), Dutch wonder (“mira… 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 wonder, spelled W-O-N-D-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A sense of awe, astonishment and curiosity, inspired by unexpected events, novel experiences and inexplicable circumstances, sometimes accompanied by surprise, shock or reverence.
- 2Something that causes amazement or awe; a marvel.
- 3Something that causes amazement or awe; a marvel.
- 4Something that causes amazement or awe; a marvel.
- 5Something that causes amazement or awe; a marvel.
- 6Something that causes amazement or awe; a marvel.
- 7Something that causes amazement or awe; a marvel.
- 8A mental pondering, a thought.
- 9A kind of donut; a cruller.
Etymology
From Middle English wonder, wunder, from Old English wundor (“wonder, miracle, marvel”), from Proto-West Germanic *wundr, from Proto-Germanic *wundrą. Cognate with Scots wunner (“wonder”), West Frisian wonder, wûnder (“wonder, miracle”), Dutch wonder (“miracle, wonder”), Low German wunner, wunder (“wonder”), German Wunder (“miracle, wonder”), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish under (“wonder, miracle”), Icelandic undur (“wonder”). The verb is from Middle English wondren, from Old English wundrian, which is from Proto-Germanic *wundrōną. Cognate with Saterland Frisian wunnerje, West Frisian wûnderje, Dutch wonderen, German Low German wunnern, German wundern, Swedish undra, Icelandic undra. Via PIE cognate with English wish (see more).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ownder,wnoder,wodner,wondder,wonderr,wondre,wonedr,wonnder,wwonder
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for wonder
Misspelling Variants of "wonder"
Frequency rank: #1,258 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter W in our English index: