babe
/beɪb/
"babe" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“babe” has 5 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #5,938. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #5,938
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A baby or infant; a very young human or animal.
Corpus desk
Index EN-babe · babe · English
babe · rank #5,938 · 5 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,938
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 5 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 31,241
- PHOTO-FINISH attraction
Nearest frequency peer: attraction (-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 neighbourhood for “babe”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Ashley
Ashley
94,066 corpus weight
- athlete
athlete
94,065 corpus weight
- attraction
attraction
94,064 corpus weight
- babe
babe
94,063 corpus weight
- bankruptcy
bankruptcy
94,062 corpus weight
- canon
canon
94,061 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “babe” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | babe |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /beɪb/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,938 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “babe” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 5 spelling variants around babe (IPA /beɪb/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #5,938 among 31,241 “B” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for babe, with forms such as "abbe", "babbe", and "baeb". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "be", "BB", "bad", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰā- Proto-Germanic *bō-redup. Proto-Germanic *babô Proto-West Germanic *babō Old English *baba Middle English babe English babe From Middle English babe, a variant of earlier baban, perhaps from Old English *baba (“boy, … The correct English form is babe, spelled B-A-B-E.
Definition
- 1A baby or infant; a very young human or animal.
- 2An attractive person, especially a young woman.
- 3Darling (term of endearment).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how babe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
These events came to pass when he was but a babe.
Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife, A home of peace by loyal friendships cheered, And love them more than death or happy life,
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰā- Proto-Germanic *bō-redup. Proto-Germanic *babô Proto-West Germanic *babō Old English *baba Middle English babe English babe From Middle English babe, a variant of earlier baban, perhaps from Old English *baba (“boy, child”), from Proto-West Germanic *babō, from Proto-Germanic *babô, reduplicated variant of *ba-, *bō- (“father, brother, close male relation”). cognates and related terms Related to Old Frisian bobba (“child”) (whence North Frisian babbe, babb, babe (“child”)), Old High German Babo (a male forename), see boy. Otherwise, origin obscure. Compare mama, dada, papa. Welsh baban (“baby”), believed by Skeat to be a mutation of maban, a diminutive of mab (“son”), is probably rather a borrowing from English. Cognate also with English bub.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- abbe
- babbe
- baeb
- bbabe
- bbae
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of babe - 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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "babe", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (5 here; floor ≥5).
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.