beagle
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "beagle", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "beagle" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "beagle" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
beagle is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small short-legged smooth-coated scenthound, often tricolored and sometimes used for hunting hares. Its friendly disposition makes it suitable as a family pet. Pronounced /ˈbiːɡəl/. Often confused with beal and belle.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | beagle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbiːɡəl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #26,693 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for beagle is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbiːɡəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,693 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for beagle, with forms such as "baegle", "bbeagle", and "beagel". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 11 confusable-pair relationships, "beal", "belle", "beige", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English *begel (attested in the plural begles), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Middle French beegueule (“one who keeps their mouth open”), whence modern French bégueule (“a colloquial insult said to women of low status and accused … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is beagle, spelled B-E-A-G-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small short-legged smooth-coated scenthound, often tricolored and sometimes used for hunting hares. Its friendly disposition makes it suitable as a family pet.
- 2A person who snoops on others; a detective.
- 3A bailiff.
- 4A small kind of shark.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English *begel (attested in the plural begles), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Middle French beegueule (“one who keeps their mouth open”), whence modern French bégueule (“a colloquial insult said to women of low status and accused of stupidity, who always have their mouths gaped or open; a prude”); from Old French beer, bayer (“to gape, gawk”) + Old French gueule (“gullet”). The modern French bigle (“beagle”) however is a borrowing from the English. Alternatively, a modification of Middle English bedel (“beadle”) in the sense of "constable, detective". The change of /t/, /d/ to /k/, /ɡ/ before /l/ is common; compare hurkle, variant of hurtelen (“to hurtle”), and in Modern English, huckleberry, turkle (“turtle”), and stickle.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: baegle,bbeagle,beagel,beaggle,beaglle,bealge,begale,ebagle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for beagle
Misspelling Variants of "beagle"
Frequency rank: #26,693 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: