bag
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bag", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bag" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bag" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bag is aEnglishnoun. It means: A soft container made out of cloth, paper, thin plastic, etc. and open at the top, used to hold food, commodities, and other goods. Pronounced /ˈbæɡ/. It ranks #1,683 in English word frequency. Often confused with be and by.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bag |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbæɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #1,683 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bag is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbæɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,683 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 21 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for bag in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "be", "by", "BC", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Old Norse baggibor.? Old French baguebor.? Middle English bagge English bag Inherited from Middle English bagge, from Old Norse baggi (“bag, pack, satchel, bundle”) (whence also Old French bague (“bundle, package, sack”)); related to Old Nors… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bag, spelled B-A-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A soft container made out of cloth, paper, thin plastic, etc. and open at the top, used to hold food, commodities, and other goods.
- 2A container made of leather, plastic, or other material, usually with a handle or handles, in which you carry personal items, or clothes or other things that you need for travelling. Includes shopping bags, schoolbags, suitcases, briefcases, handbags, backpacks, etc.
- 3One's preference.
- 4An ugly woman.
- 5The cloth-covered pillow used for first, second, and third base.
- 6First, second, or third base.
- 7A breathalyzer, so named because it formerly had a plastic bag over the end to measure a set amount of breath.
- 8A collection of objects, disregarding order, but (unlike a set) in which elements may be repeated.
- 9A sac in animal bodies, containing some fluid or other substance.
- 10A sac in animal bodies, containing some fluid or other substance.
- 11A sac in animal bodies, containing some fluid or other substance.
- 12A pouch tied behind a man's head to hold the back-hair of a wig; a bag wig.
- 13The quantity of game bagged in a hunt.
- 14A unit of measure of cement equal to 94 pounds.
- 15A dark circle under the eye, caused by lack of sleep, drug addiction etc.
- 16A large number or amount.
- 17In certain phrases: money.
- 18A fellow gay man.
- 19A small envelope that contains drugs, especially narcotics.
- 20The scrotum.
- 21£1000, a grand.
Etymology
Etymology tree Old Norse baggibor.? Old French baguebor.? Middle English bagge English bag Inherited from Middle English bagge, from Old Norse baggi (“bag, pack, satchel, bundle”) (whence also Old French bague (“bundle, package, sack”)); related to Old Norse bǫggr (“harm, shame; load, burden”), of uncertain origin.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #1,683 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: