English Words: B
31,241 words · Page 20 of 625
Spin applied to a ball in order to slow it, change its flight, or stop it when it lands.
A vertical covering on a wall rising above a countertop or other work surface to protect the wall from spills and to decorate the wall.
To attack someone (especially verbally) unfairly in a deceitful, underhand, or treacherous manner, especially when they're not present in the place or situation that it happens.
A traitor or hypocrite, such as a co-worker or friend assumed trustworthy but who figuratively attacks when one's back is turned.
A staircase at the rear of a building or one normally only used by servants and tradesmen.
A part of the rigging of a sailing ship extending from the top of the mast (masthead) to the back of the ship; they support the strain on all upper masts and provide additional support to the shrouds when the wind is abaft the beam.
A technique for designing stabilizing controls for a special recursive class of nonlinear dynamical systems.
An illegal shot in which a player strikes the ball with the rounded face of the stick in field hockey.
A type of sewing stitch where the stitch goes backwards on the top side of the fabric and doubles forward on the bottom, coming out farther in front, then repeats. The backstitch is a very tight and secure stitch, and also looks very neat.
An object or a person put in the rear or in the back of something to reinforce, hold, support.
The previous experiences and life of a person, specifically (narratology, especially in film, television) a character in a dramatic work.
Associated with neighborhoods on back streets, often in older neighborhoods, with poorer residents.
Synonym of back straight (“straight part of a racetrack, running track, etc., opposite the finishing line”).
Any of various aquatic insects, of the family Notonectidae, that swim on their backs.
The preparatory stroke preceding that which produces contact with the target. Normally associated with sports using an implement such as a bat, club, racket or stick.
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 20. 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.