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bain-marie

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

10 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bain-marie", 10-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 "bain-marie" 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 "bain-marie" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

bain-marie is aEnglishnoun. It means: A large pan containing hot water, into which other smaller pans are set in order to cook food slowly, or to keep food warm. Pronounced /ˌbænməˈriː/.

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Key facts for bain-marie
PropertyValue
Headwordbain-marie
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˌbænməˈriː/
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

bain-marie is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for bain-marie is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌbænməˈriː/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for bain-marie in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French bain-marie, from Medieval Latin balneum Mariae (literally “Maria's bath”). 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 bain-marie, spelled B-A-I-N---M-A-R-I-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A large pan containing hot water, into which other smaller pans are set in order to cook food slowly, or to keep food warm.
  2. 2
    A unit comprising an array of such pans.

Etymology

Borrowed from French bain-marie, from Medieval Latin balneum Mariae (literally “Maria's bath”).

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "bain-marie"?
"bain-marie" is spelled B-A-I-N---M-A-R-I-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ˌbænməˈriː/.
What does "bain-marie" mean?
As a noun, "bain-marie" means: A large pan containing hot water, into which other smaller pans are set in order to cook food slowly, or to keep food warm.
How do you pronounce "bain-marie"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "bain-marie" is /ˌbænməˈriː/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "bain-marie"?
Borrowed from French bain-marie, from Medieval Latin balneum Mariae (literally “Maria's bath”). See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.