ball
/bɔl/
"ball" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ball” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #961 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #961
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 3
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ball |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɔl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #961 |
| Misspellings tracked | 3 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ball” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for ball is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɔl/. Corpus data places it at rank #961 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 24 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for ball, with forms such as "abll", "bball", and "blal". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "BL", "bar", "bay", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- Proto-Germanic *balluz Old English *beall Middle English bal English ball From Middle English bal, ball, balle, from an unattested Old English *beall, *bealla (“round object, ball”) or Old Norse bǫllr (“a ball”), bo… The correct English form is ball, spelled B-A-L-L.
Definition
- 1A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
- 2A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
- 3Homologue or analogue of a disk in the Euclidean plane.
- 4Homologue or analogue of a disk in the Euclidean plane.
- 5Homologue or analogue of a disk in the Euclidean plane.
- 6A solid, spherical nonexplosive missile for a cannon, rifle, gun, etc.
- 7A solid, spherical nonexplosive missile for a cannon, rifle, gun, etc.
- 8A roundish, protuberant portion of some part of the body.
- 9A roundish, protuberant portion of some part of the body.
- 10The globe; the earthly sphere.
- 11An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 12An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 13An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 14An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 15An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 16An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 17An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 18An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game
- 19A testicle.
- 20A testicle.
- 21A testicle.
- 22A leather-covered cushion, fastened to a handle called a ballstock; formerly used by printers for inking the form, then superseded by the roller.
- 23A large pill, a form in which medicine was given to horses; a bolus.
- 24One thousand US dollars.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- Proto-Germanic *balluz Old English *beall Middle English bal English ball From Middle English bal, ball, balle, from an unattested Old English *beall, *bealla (“round object, ball”) or Old Norse bǫllr (“a ball”), both from Proto-Germanic *balluz, *ballô (“ball”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰol-n- (“ball, bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to blow, inflate, swell”). Cognate with Old Saxon ball, Dutch bal, Old High German bal, ballo (German Ball (“ball”); Ballen (“bale”)). Related forms in Romance are borrowings from Germanic. See also balloon, bale.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abll,bball,blal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of ball - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “ball”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-L-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɔl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “BL” - see the side-by-side comparison. ball vs BL
- 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.