awn
/ɔːn/
"awn" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“awn” is an uncommon English word, ranked #74,741 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #74,741
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The bristle or beard of barley, oats, grasses, etc., or any similar bristlelike appendage; arista.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | awn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɔːn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #74,741 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “awn” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for awn is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɔːn/. Corpus data places it at rank #74,741 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The bristle or beard of barley, oats, grasses, etc., or any similar bristlelike appendage; arista.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for awn, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English aw(u)ne, agune, from Old Norse ǫgn (compare Danish avne), from Proto-Germanic *aganō, *ahanō (“chaff”) (compare Old English agnu, Dutch agen, German Ahne, Agen), from Proto-Indo-European *aḱanā (compare Latin agna (“ear of whea… The correct English form is awn, spelled A-W-N.
Definition
- 1The bristle or beard of barley, oats, grasses, etc., or any similar bristlelike appendage; arista.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English aw(u)ne, agune, from Old Norse ǫgn (compare Danish avne), from Proto-Germanic *aganō, *ahanō (“chaff”) (compare Old English agnu, Dutch agen, German Ahne, Agen), from Proto-Indo-European *aḱanā (compare Latin agna (“ear of wheat”), Lithuanian ašni̇̀s (“edge, blade”), Czech osina, Ancient Greek ἄκαινα (ákaina, “spike, prick”), ἄκανος (ákanos, “pine-thistle”), Sanskrit अशनि (aśáni, “thunderbolt, arrow tip”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”). More at edge.
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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Using “awn”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-W-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɔːn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.