bane
/beɪn/
"bane" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bane” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #20,563 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #20,563
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A cause of misery or ruin.
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 | bane |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /beɪn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #20,563 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bane” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bane is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /beɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #20,563 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for bane, with forms such as "abne", "banne", and "bbane". 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, "be", "bn", "bar", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is derived from Middle English bane (“person or thing that destroys life, murderer, slayer; person who destroys the soul; destruction of life, death, doom; poison”), from Old English bana (“person or thing that causes death, murderer”), from Proto-… The correct English form is bane, spelled B-A-N-E.
Definition
- 1A cause of misery or ruin.
- 2Chiefly in the names of poisonous plants or substances: a poison.
- 3Misery, woe; also, doom, ruin; or physical injury, harm.
- 4A disease of sheep in which breakdown of tissue occurs; rot.
- 5A person or thing that causes death or destruction; a killer, a murderer, a slayer.
- 6Death; destruction; (countable) an instance of this.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English bane (“person or thing that destroys life, murderer, slayer; person who destroys the soul; destruction of life, death, doom; poison”), from Old English bana (“person or thing that causes death, murderer”), from Proto-West Germanic *banō, from Proto-Germanic *banô (“killer, murderer, slayer; death, bane”), probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰen- (“to slay, kill; to strike”). The verb is derived from the noun. cognates * Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐌽𐌾𐌰 (banja, “wound”) * Old Frisian bona (“death; murder”) * Old Norse bani (Danish bane (“death; murder”), Icelandic bani (“bane, death”), Swedish bane (“death; murder”)), Old Norse ben (“(moral) wound”) * Old English ben, benn (“mortal injury; wound”) * Old High German bano (“death”) (Middle High German ban, bane) * Old Saxon bano (“death; murder”), beni (“mortal injury; wound”)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abne,banne,bbane,bnae
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bane - 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 “bane”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /beɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “be” - see the side-by-side comparison. bane vs be
- 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.