basketball
/ˈbɑːs.kɪt.bɔːl/
"basketball" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“basketball” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,657 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,657
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A sport in which two opposing teams of five players strive to put a ball through a hoop.
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 | basketball |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɑːs.kɪt.bɔːl/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #2,657 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “basketball” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for basketball is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɑːs.kɪt.bɔːl/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,657 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for basketball, with forms such as "absketball", "baksetball", and "basektball". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "baseball", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From basket + ball. The correct English form is basketball, spelled B-A-S-K-E-T-B-A-L-L.
Definition
- 1A sport in which two opposing teams of five players strive to put a ball through a hoop.
- 2The particular kind of ball used in the sport of basketball.
Etymology
From basket + ball.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: absketball,baksetball,basektball,baskebtall,basketabll,basketbal,basketbball,basketblal,baskettball,baskketball,baskteball,bassketball,bbasketball,bsaketball
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of basketball - 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
How do you spell "basketball"?
What does "basketball" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “basketball”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-S-K-E-T-B-A-L-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɑːs.kɪt.bɔːl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “baseball” - see the side-by-side comparison. basketball vs baseball
- 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.