beach
/biːt͡ʃ/
"beach" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“beach” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,263 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,263
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The shore of a body of water, especially when sandy or pebbly.
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 | beach |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /biːt͡ʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,263 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “beach” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for beach is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /biːt͡ʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,263 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for beach, with forms such as "baech", "bbeach", and "beacch". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "beat", "bear", "beam", 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 bache, bæcche (“bank, sandbank”), from Old English beċe (“beck, brook, stream”), from Proto-West Germanic *baki, from Proto-Germanic *bakiz (“brook”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“flowing water”). Cognates Cognate with Cimbrian pach… The correct English form is beach, spelled B-E-A-C-H.
Definition
- 1The shore of a body of water, especially when sandy or pebbly.
- 2A horizontal strip of land, usually sandy, adjoining water.
- 3The loose pebbles of the seashore, especially worn by waves; shingle.
- 4Synonym of gravel trap.
- 5A dry, dusty pitch or situation, as though playing on sand.
- 6Euphemistic form of bitch (taboo swear word).
Etymology
From Middle English bache, bæcche (“bank, sandbank”), from Old English beċe (“beck, brook, stream”), from Proto-West Germanic *baki, from Proto-Germanic *bakiz (“brook”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“flowing water”). Cognates Cognate with Cimbrian pach (“brook, creek, stream”), Dutch beek (“brook, stream”), German Bach (“brook, stream”), German Low German Beek (“brook, stream”), Luxembourgish Baach (“brook, stream”), Mòcheno pòch (“brook, creek, stream”), Vilamovian bāh, baoch (“brook, stream”), Danish bæk (“brook”), Icelandic bekkur (“creek, spring, stream”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk bekk (“brook, creek, stream”), Swedish bäck (“brook, creek, stream”); also Lithuanian banga (“billow, wave”). More at batch, beck.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: baech,bbeach,beacch,beachh,beahc,becah,ebach
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of beach - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “beach”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-E-A-C-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /biːt͡ʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “beat” - see the side-by-side comparison. beach vs beat
- 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.