bang
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bang", 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 "bang" 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 "bang" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bang is aEnglishnoun. It means: A sudden percussive noise. Pronounced /ˈbæŋ/. It ranks #4,139 in English word frequency. Often confused with bn and BG.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bang |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbæŋ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,139 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bang is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbæŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,139 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 13 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 bang, with forms such as "abng", "bagn", and "bangg". 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, "bn", "BG", "big", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English *bangen, from Old English *bangian or borrowed from Old Norse banga (“to pound, hammer”); both from Proto-Germanic *bangōną (“to beat, pound”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰen- (“to beat, hit, injure”). Cognate with Scots bang, bung (“to … 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 bang, spelled B-A-N-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A sudden percussive noise.
- 2A strike upon an object causing such a noise.
- 3An explosion.
- 4Synonym of bangs: hair hanging over the forehead, especially a hairstyle with such hair cut straight across.
- 5The symbol !, known as an exclamation point.
- 6A factorial, in mathematics, because the factorial of n is often written as n!
- 7An act of sexual intercourse.
- 8An offbeat figure typical of reggae songs and played on guitar and piano.
- 9An explosive product.
- 10An injection, a shot (of a narcotic drug).
- 11An abrupt left turn.
- 12strong smell (of)
- 13A thrill.
Etymology
From Middle English *bangen, from Old English *bangian or borrowed from Old Norse banga (“to pound, hammer”); both from Proto-Germanic *bangōną (“to beat, pound”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰen- (“to beat, hit, injure”). Cognate with Scots bang, bung (“to strike, bang, hurl, thrash, offend”), Icelandic banga (“to pound, hammer”), Old Swedish bånga ("to hammer"; whence modern Swedish banka (“to knock, pound, bang”)), Danish banke (“to beat”), bengel (“club”), Low German bangen, bangeln (“to strike, beat”), West Frisian bingel, bongel, Dutch bengel (“bell; rascal”), German Bengel (“club”), bungen (“to throb, pulsate”). In the sense of a fringe of hair, from bang off. In the sense of abrupt left turn, from Boston left and associated risk of a crash.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abng,bagn,bangg,banng,bbang,bnag
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bang
Misspelling Variants of "bang"
Frequency rank: #4,139 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: