amber
/ˈam.bə/
"amber" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“amber” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #7,414. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #7,414
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ambergris, the waxy product of the sperm whale.
Corpus desk
Index EN-amber · amber · English
amber · rank #7,414 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #7,414
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH AF
Nearest frequency peer: AF (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “amber”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- writings
writings
92,590 corpus weight
- admire
admire
92,589 corpus weight
- AF
AF
92,588 corpus weight
- amber
amber
92,587 corpus weight
- ankle
ankle
92,586 corpus weight
- armor
armor
92,585 corpus weight
What this shows “amber” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | amber |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈam.bə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #7,414 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “amber”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around amber (IPA /ˈam.bə/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #7,414 among 3,931 “A” headwords. Wiktionary lists 7 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for amber, with forms such as "abmer", "ambber", and "amberr". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "AmE", "AMR", "amen", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English ambre, aumbre, from Old French aumbre, ambre, from Arabic عَنْبَر (ʕanbar, “ambergris”), from Middle Persian 𐭠𐭭𐭡𐭫 (ʾnbl /ambar/, “ambergris”). Compare English lamber, ambergris. Displaced Middle English smulting (from Old English s… The correct English form is amber, spelled A-M-B-E-R.
Definition
- 1Ambergris, the waxy product of the sperm whale.
- 2Ambergris, the waxy product of the sperm whale.
- 3A hard, generally yellow to brown translucent or transparent fossil resin from extinct coniferous trees of the pine genus, used for jewellery, decoration and later dissolved as a binder in varnishes. One variety, blue amber, appears blue rather than yellow under direct sunlight.
- 4A yellow-orange colour.
- 5The intermediate light in a set of three traffic lights, which when illuminated indicates that drivers should stop when safe to do so. See also yellow light.
- 6The stop codon (nucleotide triplet) "UAG", or a mutant which has this stop codon at a premature place in its DNA sequence.
- 7Hesitance to proceed, or limited approval to proceed; an amber light.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how amber appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ambre is hote and drye […] Some say that it is the sparme of a whale.
As for Amber Grice, or Amber Cane, which ist most sweet myngled with other sweete thynges: some say it commeth from the rocks of the Sea. […] Some say it is gotten by a fish called Azelum, which feedeth upon Amber Grece, and dyeth, which is taken by cunnyng fishers and the belly opened, and this precious Amber found in hym.
Etymology
From Middle English ambre, aumbre, from Old French aumbre, ambre, from Arabic عَنْبَر (ʕanbar, “ambergris”), from Middle Persian 𐭠𐭭𐭡𐭫 (ʾnbl /ambar/, “ambergris”). Compare English lamber, ambergris. Displaced Middle English smulting (from Old English smelting (“amber”)), Old English eolhsand (“amber”), Old English glær (“amber”), and Old English sāp (“amber, resin, pomade”). * The nucleotide sequence "UAG" is named "amber" for the first person to isolate the amber mutation, California Institute of Technology graduate student Harris Bernstein, whose last name ("Bernstein") is the German word for the resin "amber".
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- abmer
- ambber
- amberr
- ambre
- amebr
- ammber
- maber
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of amber - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "amber", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).