banana
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "banana", 6-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 "banana" 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 "banana" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
banana is aEnglishnoun. It means: An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin. Pronounced /bəˈnɑː.nə/. It ranks #7,096 in English word frequency. Often confused with banda and Bangla.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | banana |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bəˈnɑː.nə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,096 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for banana is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bəˈnɑː.nə/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,096 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for banana, with forms such as "abnana", "baanna", and "banaan". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 9 confusable-pair relationships, "banda", "Bangla", "Baraka", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Portuguese banana or Spanish banana, derived from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region. Specific derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) … 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 banana, spelled B-A-N-A-N-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin.
- 2An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin.
- 3The tropical tree-like plant which bears clusters of bananas, a plant of the genus Musa (but sometimes also including plants from Ensete), which has large, elongated leaves.
- 4A yellow color, like that of a banana's skin.
- 5A person of East or Southeast Asian descent, considered to be overly assimilated and subservient to white authority.
- 6A person of Chinese descent who cannot speak Mandarin or any Chinese dialect
- 7The penis.
- 8A banana kick.
- 9A banana equivalent dose.
- 10A catamorphism (from the use of banana brackets in the notation).
- 11An incorrectly held handstand, often seen in beginners.
Etymology
Borrowed from Portuguese banana or Spanish banana, derived from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region. Specific derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) or ꕒꕌꕯ (ɓaana), possibly from Arabic بَنَان (banān, “fingertip, banana”). However, Ay Baati Wolof (Munro & Gaye, 1997) posits that Wolof banaana is itself derived from Portuguese banana. The racial slur derives from the notion that they are “Yellow (East-Asian) on the outside, but White (Westernized) on the inside”.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abnana,baanna,banaan,bananna,bannaa,bannana,bbanana,bnaana
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for banana
Misspelling Variants of "banana"
Frequency rank: #7,096 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: