bar
/bɑː/
"bar" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bar” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,213) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #1,213
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.
Corpus desk
Index EN-bar · bar · English
bar · rank #1,213 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,213
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH anymore
Nearest frequency peer: anymore (-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 neighbourhood for “bar”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- workers
workers
98,791 corpus weight
- annual
annual
98,790 corpus weight
- anymore
anymore
98,789 corpus weight
- bar
bar
98,788 corpus weight
- battle
battle
98,787 corpus weight
- brain
brain
98,786 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “bar” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | bar |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɑː/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #1,213 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bar” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for bar is neighbouring look-alikes ("be", "by", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /bɑː/. Frequency #1,213 among 4,121 “B” headwords. 41 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
No misspelling variants are generated for bar in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "be", "by", "BC", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English barre, from Old French barre (“beam, bar, gate, barrier”), from Vulgar Latin *barra, of uncertain origin. Doublet of barre. The correct English form is bar, spelled B-A-R.
Definition
- 1A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.
- 2A solid metal object with uniform (round, square, hexagonal, octagonal or rectangular) cross-section; in the US its smallest dimension is ¹⁄₄ inch or greater, a piece of thinner material being called a strip.
- 3A cuboid piece of any solid commodity.
- 4A broad shaft, band, or stripe.
- 5A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart.
- 6Any of various lines used as punctuation or diacritics, such as the pipe ⟨|⟩, fraction bar (as in 12), and strikethrough (as in Ⱥ), formerly (obsolete) including oblique marks such as the slash.
- 7The sign indicating that the characteristic of a logarithm is negative, conventionally placed above the digit(s) to show that it applies to the characteristic only and not to the mantissa.
- 8A similar sign indicating that the charge on a particle is the negative of its usual value (and that consequently the particle is in fact an antiparticle).
- 9A business selling alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; a public house.
- 10The counter of such premises.
- 11A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room.
- 12Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage.
- 13An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises.
- 14An establishment offering cosmetic services.
- 15An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity.
- 16Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier.
- 17A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo.
- 18A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass.
- 19The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay.
- 20The bar exam, the legal licensing exam.
- 21Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries, but including all lawyers in others.
- 22One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining.
- 23A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value.
- 24One of those musical sections.
- 25One of those musical sections.
- 26A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault.
- 27Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome; a standard or expectation.
- 28The crossbar.
- 29The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit.
- 30An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act.
- 31A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially
- 32A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially:
- 33One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess.
- 34A city gate, in some British place names.
- 35A drilling or tamping rod.
- 36A vein or dike crossing a lode.
- 37A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.
- 38The part of the crust of a horse's hoof which is bent inwards towards the frog at the heel on each side, and extends into the centre of the sole.
- 39The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.
- 40A measure of drugs, typically one ounce.
- 41A small, tablet-shaped dose of Xanax, typically containing two milligrams and able to be split into quarters.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bar appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The window was protected by steel bars.
Ancient Sparta used iron bars instead of handy coins in more valuable alloy, to physically discourage the use of money.
Etymology
From Middle English barre, from Old French barre (“beam, bar, gate, barrier”), from Vulgar Latin *barra, of uncertain origin. Doublet of barre.
This word in other languages
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bar", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "bar". Here's where to go from here.
- "bar" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "be". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #1,213 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "B" letter cohort. B–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.