bairn
/bɛərn/
"bairn" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bairn” is an uncommon English word, ranked #90,174 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #90,174
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A child or baby.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bairn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɛərn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #90,174 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bairn” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bairn is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɛərn/. Corpus data places it at rank #90,174 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A child or baby.".
bairn doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Scots bairn, from Middle English bern, barn, from Old English bearn, from Proto-West Germanic *barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną. Doublet of barn. Compare West Frisian bern. The correct English form is bairn, spelled B-A-I-R-N.
Definition
- 1A child or baby.
Etymology
Borrowed from Scots bairn, from Middle English bern, barn, from Old English bearn, from Proto-West Germanic *barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną. Doublet of barn. Compare West Frisian bern.
This word in other languages
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 “bairn”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-I-R-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɛərn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.