bao
/baʊ/
"bao" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bao” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #24,388) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #24,388
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of various types of steamed bread or bun used in Chinese cuisine
Corpus desk
Index EN-bao · bao · English
bao · rank #24,388 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #24,388
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH banded
Nearest frequency peer: banded (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “bao”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- baffling
baffling
75,616 corpus weight
- bal
bal
75,615 corpus weight
- banded
banded
75,614 corpus weight
- bao
bao
75,613 corpus weight
- bathed
bathed
75,612 corpus weight
- betraying
betraying
75,611 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “bao” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | bao |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /baʊ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #24,388 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “bao”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for bao is neighbouring look-alikes ("be", "by", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /baʊ/. Frequency #24,388 among 4,121 “B” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for bao, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "be", "by", "BC", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Mandarin 包 (bāo) or Cantonese 包 (baau1). Cognate of Vietnamese bánh bao. The correct English form is bao, spelled B-A-O.
Definition
- 1Any of various types of steamed bread or bun used in Chinese cuisine
- 2A sandwich or stuffed bun made with this bread
Etymology
Borrowed from Mandarin 包 (bāo) or Cantonese 包 (baau1). Cognate of Vietnamese bánh bao.
Synonyms
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bao", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).