bacilli
/bəˈsɪl.aɪ/
"bacilli" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bacilli” is uncommon English (frequency #95,718 among 31,241 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #95,718
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - plural of bacillus
Corpus desk
Index EN-bacilli · bacilli · English
bacilli · rank #95,718 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #95,718
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 31,241
- PHOTO-FINISH backbeat
Nearest frequency peer: backbeat (+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 “bacilli”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Azzurri
Azzurri
4,286 corpus weight
- bacilli
bacilli
4,283 corpus weight
- backbeat
backbeat
4,282 corpus weight
- backbiting
backbiting
4,281 corpus weight
- Baldi
Baldi
4,279 corpus weight
- barilla
barilla
4,277 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “bacilli” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bacilli |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bəˈsɪl.aɪ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #95,718 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bacilli” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
bacilli is uncommon English at frequency #95,718 among 31,241 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /bəˈsɪl.aɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "plural of bacillus".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for bacilli, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is bacilli, spelled B-A-C-I-L-L-I.
Definition
- 1plural of bacillus
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 "bacilli", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
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.