American bison

/əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈbaɪ̯sən/

//əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈbaɪ̯sən// noun

"american-bison" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“American bison” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A bovine mammal, a species of bison, Bison bison, endemic to North America.

Corpus desk

Index EN-american-bison · American bison · English

American bison · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 14 letters
  • VOW-6 6 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "A" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for American bison
PropertyValue
HeadwordAmerican bison
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈbaɪ̯sən/
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “American bison” in English

American bisonsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

American bison is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈbaɪ̯sən/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A bovine mammal, a species of bison, Bison bison, endemic to North America.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for American bison, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is American bison, spelled A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N- -B-I-S-O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    A bovine mammal, a species of bison, Bison bison, endemic to North America.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how American bison appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. In the year 1521, when Cortez reached Anahuac, the American bison was seen for the first time by civilized Europeans, if we may be permitted to thus characterize the horde of blood thirsty plunder seekers who fought their way to the Aztec capital.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "American bison"?
"American bison" is spelled A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N- -B-I-S-O-N. The IPA pronunciation is /əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈbaɪ̯sən/.
What does "American bison" mean?
As a noun, "American bison" means: A bovine mammal, a species of bison, Bison bison, endemic to North America.
How do you pronounce "American bison"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "American bison" is /əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈbaɪ̯sən/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "American bison" come from?
"American bison" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list