English Words: B

31,241 words · Page 1 of 625

bcharacter

The second letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

B2Badj

Initialism of back-to-back.

b4prep

Alternative letter-case form of B4 (“before”).

banoun

A being's soul or personality, represented as a bird-headed figure, which survives after death but must be sustained with offerings of food.

baanoun

The characteristic cry or bleating of a sheep.

Baalname

A storm and fertility god of the Phoenician and Canaanite pantheons, reckoned as chief of the gods by the 1st millennium BC.

Baarname

A surname.

baasnoun

An employer, a boss (frequently used as a form of address).

Baathname

The Arab Socialist Baath Party, a secular Arab socialist political party present in several countries in the Middle East, most prominently Iraq and Syria.

babnoun

A baby.

babanoun

A kind of sponge cake soaked in rum-flavoured syrup.

babbittnoun

Ellipsis of babbitt metal or Babbitt metal (“a soft white alloy of variable composition used in bearings to diminish friction”).

babbleverb

To utter words indistinctly or unintelligibly; to utter inarticulate sounds

babblingnoun

a stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words

babbynoun

Pronunciation spelling of baby

Babcockname

A surname from Middle English.

babenoun

A baby or infant; a very young human or animal.

Babelname

The city and tower in the land of Shinar where the confusion of languages took place, according to the Bible.

babesnoun

plural of babe

babiedverb

simple past and past participle of baby

babiesnoun

plural of baby

Babingtonname

A surname from Old English.

baboonnoun

An Old World monkey of the genus Papio, having dog-like muzzles and large canine teeth, cheek pouches, a short tail, and naked callosities on the buttocks.

Babsname

A diminutive of the female given name Barbara.

babunoun

A Hindu title of respect, equivalent to Mr., usually appended to the surname of a Hindu man.

babynoun

A very young human, particularly from birth to a couple of years old or until walking is fully mastered.

babyfacenoun

Alternative form of baby face.

Babylonname

An ancient city, the ancient capital of Babylonia in modern Iraq, built on the banks of the Euphrates.

Babylonianame

An ancient empire and geographic region of Mesopotamia, existing from 1850 BCE to 539 BCE, based around the city of Babylon; at its maximum extent, covering parts of modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, Syria and Iran.

Babylonianadj

Pertaining to the city of Babylon, or the Babylonian Empire.

babysitverb

To watch or tend someone else's child for a period of time, often for money.

babysitternoun

A person who cares for one or more babies or children for a short period of time in place of their legal guardians.

babysittingverb

present participle and gerund of babysit

bacnoun

A broad, flat-bottomed ferryboat, usually worked by a rope.

Bacaname

A surname.

baccnoun

Clipping of baccalaureate.

baccalaureatenoun

A bachelor's degree.

baccaratnoun

A card game resembling chemin de fer with many forms, usually entailing the player(s) betting against two or three hands dealt, and also bearing some similarities to blackjack.

bacchanaladj

Relating to Bacchus or his festival.

Bacchusname

Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and vivid social gatherings.

bachnoun

A bachelor.

bachanoun

A dancing boy in parts of Central Asia.

bachatanoun

A genre of music originating in the Dominican Republic.

Bachename

A surname.

Bacheletname

A surname from French

bachelornoun

A person, especially a man, who is socially regarded as able to marry, but has not yet.

bachelorettenoun

An unmarried woman.

Bachmannname

A surname.

bacillinoun

plural of bacillus

bacillusnoun

Any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming aerobic bacteria in the genus Bacillus, some of which cause disease.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English alphabetical index for the letter B contains 31,241 headwords drawn from our Wiktionary-derived dictionary table. At 50 entries per page the browse splits into 625 pages, and you are currently viewing page 1. Every row above is a dictionary-backed entry with a canonical slug, and each links through to a full definition page with pronunciation, senses, etymology, and related-word data where available.

On this page 50 of 50 entries carry a part-of-speech tag and 50 carry at least one stored definition. Coverage varies across letters because Wiktionary volunteers build entries at different speeds for different parts of the alphabet, letters with common starting sounds (S, C, T, P) usually have the densest coverage, while less frequent starters (X, Q, Z) tend to have shorter but more specialised lists. PlainSpell surfaces whatever data is present and links back to the source when a definition is not yet recorded.

For readers using this index as a spelling reference, the guarantee is that every form you see on the list is a documented English headword, not a guess, not a derived inflection lacking a lemma row. If a word you expected to find is absent from the "B" list, it usually means the form exists only as an inflection of another lemma (e.g. a past participle stored under the infinitive) or the entry has not yet been imported from Wiktionary. Use the search bar or the misspelling lookup to resolve these cases.