stonehenge
/stoʊ̯nˈhɛnd͡ʒ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.93 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
An ancient group of standing stones on Salisbury Plain in Amesbury parish, Wiltshire, England (OS grid ref SU1242).
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Example Sentences
- "The collection of rocks is a national landmark that looks something like a Stonehenge on the prairie."
- "Within weeks of winning the General Election in July 2024, the government halted a planned tunnel for the A303 past Stonehenge in Wiltshire. It stated that the £2 billion scheme was "poor value for money". […] The West of England line carries a tiny fraction of the volumes on the parallel road [A303], and Stonehenge is a nationally notorious bottleneck."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English Stonhenge, from ston (“stone”) + henge (“hinge”) or hengen ("hanging", but only attested as "imprisonment"). More at Stonehenge on Wikipedia.Wikipedia The failure of /ɛnd͡ʒ/ to regularly raise to /ɪnd͡ʒ/, as in hinge, singe < Middle English henge, sengen, is probably due to the influence of the local dialect; compare the forms /ɛnd͡ʒ/, /sɛnd͡ʒ/ "hinge, singe" attested for the early 20th-century dialect of Pewsey, Wiltshire, approximately 18.5 kilometres (11.5 miles) from Stonehenge.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Stonhenge
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /stoʊ̯nˈhɛnd͡ʒ/
- British English: /stəʊ̯nˈhɛnd͡ʒ/
Inflected Forms
Stonage (alternative, obsolete)