band
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "band", 4-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 "band" 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 "band" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
band is aEnglishnoun. It means: A strip of material used for strengthening or coupling. Pronounced /bænd/. It ranks #1,262 in English word frequency. Often confused with bd and bn.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | band |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bænd/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,262 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for band is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bænd/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,262 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 19 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for band, with forms such as "abnd", "badn", and "bandd". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bd", "bn", "bed", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *bandiz Old English bend Middle English band English band Inherited from Middle English band (also bond), from Old English beand, bænd, bend (“bond, chain, fetter, band, ribbon, ornament, chaple… 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 band, spelled B-A-N-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A strip of material used for strengthening or coupling.
- 2A strip of material used for strengthening or coupling.
- 3A strip of material used for strengthening or coupling.
- 4A strip of material used for strengthening or coupling.
- 5A long strip of material, color, etc, that is different from the surrounding area.
- 6A strip of decoration.
- 7A strip of decoration.
- 8That which serves as the means of union or connection between persons; a tie.
- 9A linen collar or ruff worn in the 16th and 17th centuries.
- 10Two strips of linen hanging from the neck in front as part of a clerical, legal, or academic dress.
- 11A part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
- 12A group of energy levels in a solid state material.
- 13A bond.
- 14Pledge; security.
- 15A ring, such as a wedding ring (wedding band), or a ring put on a bird's leg to identify it.
- 16Any distinguishing line formed by chromatography, electrophoresis etc
- 17Ellipsis of band cell.
- 18A wad of money totaling $1K, held together by a band; (by extension) $1000, a grand; (by extension) money
- 19A designated range of radio frequencies used for wireless communication.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *bandiz Old English bend Middle English band English band Inherited from Middle English band (also bond), from Old English beand, bænd, bend (“bond, chain, fetter, band, ribbon, ornament, chaplet, crown”), from Proto-Germanic *bandą, *bandiz (“band, fetter”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ- (“to tie, bind”). Middle English band reinforced by Old French bande. Cognate with Dutch band, German Band, Danish bånd, Swedish band, Icelandic band (“band”). Related to bond, bind, bend.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abnd,badn,bandd,bannd,bband,bnad
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for band
Misspelling Variants of "band"
Frequency rank: #1,262 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: