balsa
/ˈbɔːl.sə/
"balsa" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“balsa” is uncommon English (frequency #54,032 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,032
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A large tree, Ochroma pyramidale, native to tropical America, with wood that is very light in weight.
Corpus desk
Index EN-balsa · balsa · English
balsa · rank #54,032 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #54,032
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH Bakewell
Nearest frequency peer: Bakewell (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “balsa”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Azusa
Azusa
45,972 corpus weight
- backlight
backlight
45,971 corpus weight
- Bakewell
Bakewell
45,970 corpus weight
- balsa
balsa
45,969 corpus weight
- bartending
bartending
45,967 corpus weight
- Bayswater
Bayswater
45,966 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “balsa” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | balsa |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɔːl.sə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #54,032 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “balsa” in English
Rare enough to double-check
balsa is uncommon English at frequency #54,032 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈbɔːl.sə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for balsa, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Spanish balsa, from Paleo-Hispanic, probably Basque [Term?] or Iberian [Term?]. Not related to balsam. The correct English form is balsa, spelled B-A-L-S-A.
Definition
- 1A large tree, Ochroma pyramidale, native to tropical America, with wood that is very light in weight.
- 2The wood of this tree.
- 3A raft or float, used principally on the Pacific coast of South America.
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish balsa, from Paleo-Hispanic, probably Basque [Term?] or Iberian [Term?]. Not related to balsam.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "balsa", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).