baulk
/bɔː(l)k/
"baulk" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“baulk” is uncommon English (frequency #84,004 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #84,004
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative spelling of balk.
Corpus desk
Index EN-baulk · baulk · English
baulk · rank #84,004 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #84,004
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH bazillion
Nearest frequency peer: bazillion (+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.
Long-tail ranks near “baulk”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- baleen
baleen
16,002 corpus weight
- balti
balti
16,001 corpus weight
- baulk
baulk
15,997 corpus weight
- bazillion
bazillion
15,996 corpus weight
- Begbie
Begbie
15,993 corpus weight
- beholding
beholding
15,992 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “baulk” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | baulk |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɔː(l)k/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #84,004 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “baulk” in English
Rare enough to double-check
baulk is uncommon English at frequency #84,004 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /bɔː(l)k/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative spelling of balk.".
baulk doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is baulk, spelled B-A-U-L-K.
Definition
- 1Alternative spelling of balk.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how baulk appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
'And am I to plunge a harpoon into that beast!' 'That's your privilege, my son,' said Malone, 'and, sad to relate, unless I give it a miss in baulk, I shall have to be at your side when you do it.'
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 "baulk", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).