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PlainSpell

bake

/beɪk/verb, noun

bake is spelled B-A-K-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 8.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,146th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, bake means “To cook (something) in an oven (for someone)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in bake?

Letters4: B-A-K-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing8.1 times per million words; the 8,146th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is bake?

Bake appears 8.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,146th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce bake?

  • US /beɪk/
  • Australia /bæɪk/
  • /bek/

Bake has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-bake.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with bake

Also written: book.

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with bake?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as bake from its last stressed vowel (/eɪk/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: beak, beka.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of bake

  • bakes present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • baking participle, present
  • baked past, participle

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does bake mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To cook (something) in an oven (for someone).

    I baked a delicious cherry pie.

  2. 2

    To be cooked in an oven.

    The cake baked at 350°F.

  3. 3

    To regularly prepare baked goods.

    In some cultures, it is expected that a proper housewife should bake.

  4. 4

    slangTo smoke marijuana.

    (Let's bake tonight.)

  5. 5

    To incorporate into something greater.

  6. 6

    To be warmed for drying and hardening.

    The clay baked in the sun.

  7. 7

    To dry by heat.

    They baked the electrical parts lightly to remove moisture.

  8. 8

    To be hot.

    It is baking in the greenhouse.

noun

  1. 1

    The act of cooking food by baking.

  2. 2

    AustraliaUKAny of various baked dishes resembling casserole.

  3. 3

    Any food item that is baked, such as a pastry.

    bake pan

  4. 4

    USA social event at which food (such as seafood) is baked, or at which baked food is served.

    an oyster bake on the shore

  5. 5

    UKUSA small, flat (or ball-shaped) cake of dough eaten mainly in Barbados, similar in appearance and ingredients to a pancake but fried (or sometimes roasted).

    For quotations using this term, see Citations:bake.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Bake in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcuire (to cook in an oven)
Germanbacken (to cook in an oven), trocknen (to dry by heat)
Portugueseassar (to cook in an oven), secar no calor (to dry by heat)
Spanishhornear, enhornar (to cook in an oven)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does bake come from?

From Middle English baken, from Old English bacan (“to bake”), from Proto-West Germanic *bakan, from Proto-Germanic *bakaną (“to bake”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g- (“to roast, bake”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after bake