bab
/bæb/
"bab" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bab” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #28,825) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #28,825
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A baby.
Corpus desk
Index EN-bab · bab · English
bab · rank #28,825 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #28,825
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH awkwardness
Nearest frequency peer: awkwardness (-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 “bab”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- austere
austere
71,179 corpus weight
- authoritari…
authoritarianism
71,178 corpus weight
- awkwardness
awkwardness
71,177 corpus weight
- bab
bab
71,176 corpus weight
- backer
backer
71,175 corpus weight
- backpacking
backpacking
71,174 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “bab” 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 | bab |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bæb/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #28,825 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “bab”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for bab is neighbouring look-alikes ("be", "by", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /bæb/. Frequency #28,825 among 4,121 “B” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
bab doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "be", "by", "BC", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Clipping of babby (“baby”). The correct English form is bab, spelled B-A-B.
Definition
- 1A baby.
- 2A bait for eels, consisting of a bundle of live worms.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how bab appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The worms were threaded onto the yarn until we had 4 or 5 feet of big juicy worms threaded through. We would coil it all up and put an old rusty nut at the centre and tie it on a bit of string on an old ash pole — this was the bab.
Etymology
Clipping of babby (“baby”).
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 "bab", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).