barmy
/ˈbɑːmi/
"barmy" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“barmy” is an uncommon English word, ranked #64,908 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #64,908
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Containing, covered with, or pertaining to barm (“foam rising upon beer or other malt liquors when fermenting, used as leaven in brewing and making bread”).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | barmy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈbɑːmi/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #64,908 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “barmy” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for barmy is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɑːmi/. Corpus data places it at rank #64,908 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for barmy in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From barm (“foam rising upon beer or other malt liquors when fermenting, and used as leaven”) + -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’ forming adjectives). Barm is derived from Middle English berm, berme (“foam rising upon ale or beer fermenting; leaven… The correct English form is barmy, spelled B-A-R-M-Y.
Definition
- 1Containing, covered with, or pertaining to barm (“foam rising upon beer or other malt liquors when fermenting, used as leaven in brewing and making bread”).
- 2Bubbling with activity or excitement; active, excited.
Etymology
From barm (“foam rising upon beer or other malt liquors when fermenting, and used as leaven”) + -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’ forming adjectives). Barm is derived from Middle English berm, berme (“foam rising upon ale or beer fermenting; leaven, yeast; foam or head of beer produced by pouring”) [and other forms], from Old English beorma (“foam or head of beer; leaven, yeast”), from Proto-West Germanic *bermō (“barm; yeast”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil; to brew”) or *gʷʰer- (“warm; hot”).
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 “barmy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-R-M-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɑːmi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.