babbling
"babbling" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“babbling” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #34,788 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #34,788
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - a stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words
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 | babbling |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #34,788 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “babbling” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for babbling is 8 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #34,788 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for babbling, with forms such as "abbbling", "babbilng", and "babblign". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "bailing", "balling", "bawling", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bablyng, babelynge, equivalent to babble + -ing. The correct English form is babbling, spelled B-A-B-B-L-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1a stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words
- 2sounds produced by infant during the babbling period
- 3Idle senseless talk; prattle.
- 4A confused murmur, as of a stream.
Etymology
From Middle English bablyng, babelynge, equivalent to babble + -ing.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abbbling,babbilng,babblign,babblingg,babblinng,babblling,babblnig,bablbing,babling,bbabbling,bbabling
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of babbling - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “babbling”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-B-B-L-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “bailing” - see the side-by-side comparison. babbling vs bailing
- 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.