banana
/bəˈnɑː.nə/
"banana" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“banana” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,096 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,096
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 9
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin.
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 | 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) |
Where “banana” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for banana is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for banana, with forms such as "abnana", "baanna", and "banaan". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. 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) … The correct English form is banana, spelled B-A-N-A-N-A.
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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of banana - 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
How do you spell "banana"?
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Using “banana”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-N-A-N-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bəˈnɑː.nə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “banda” - see the side-by-side comparison. banana vs banda
- 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.