ard
/ɑɹd/
"ard" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ard” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #26,332) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #26,332
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A simple plough consisting of a spike dragged through the soil.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ard · ard · English
ard · rank #26,332 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #26,332
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH aortic
Nearest frequency peer: aortic (-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.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “ard”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- allegory
allegory
73,674 corpus weight
- alp
alp
73,673 corpus weight
- aortic
aortic
73,670 corpus weight
- ard
ard
73,669 corpus weight
- Ashland
Ashland
73,668 corpus weight
- averted
averted
73,666 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “ard” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | ard |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɑɹd/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #26,332 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “ard”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ard is neighbouring look-alikes ("as", "at", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /ɑɹd/. Frequency #26,332 among 3,931 “A” headwords. Gloss: "A simple plough consisting of a spike dragged through the soil.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for ard, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "as", "at", "aw", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Norwegian ard (“plough”), from Old Norse arðr, from Proto-Germanic *arþrą (“plough”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂érh₃trom (“plough”), whence also Latin aratrum. The correct English form is ard, spelled A-R-D.
Definition
- 1A simple plough consisting of a spike dragged through the soil.
Etymology
Borrowed from Norwegian ard (“plough”), from Old Norse arðr, from Proto-Germanic *arþrą (“plough”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂érh₃trom (“plough”), whence also Latin aratrum.
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); 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 "ard", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).