bear
/bɛə/
"bear" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bear” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,985 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,985
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large, generally omnivorous mammal (a few species are purely carnivorous or herbivorous), having shaggy fur, a very small tail, and flat feet; a member of the family Ursidae.
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 | bear |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɛə/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,985 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bear” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bear is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɛə/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,985 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for bear, with forms such as "baer", "bbear", and "bearr". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "br", "bed", "bet", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bere, from Old English bera, from Proto-West Germanic *berō, from Proto-Germanic *berô, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Boar, Boare (“bear”), West Frisian bear (“bear”), Cimbrian, Mòcheno per (“… The correct English form is bear, spelled B-E-A-R.
Definition
- 1A large, generally omnivorous mammal (a few species are purely carnivorous or herbivorous), having shaggy fur, a very small tail, and flat feet; a member of the family Ursidae.
- 2A large, generally omnivorous mammal (a few species are purely carnivorous or herbivorous), having shaggy fur, a very small tail, and flat feet; a member of the family Ursidae.
- 3A rough, unmannerly, uncouth person.
- 4An investor who sells commodities, securities, or futures in anticipation of a fall in prices.
- 5A state policeman (short for Smokey Bear).
- 6A large, hairy man, especially one who is homosexual.
- 7A koala (bear).
- 8A portable punching machine.
- 9A block covered with coarse matting, used to scour the deck.
- 10The fifteenth Lenormand card.
- 11Something difficult or tiresome; a burden or chore.
Etymology
From Middle English bere, from Old English bera, from Proto-West Germanic *berō, from Proto-Germanic *berô, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Boar, Boare (“bear”), West Frisian bear (“bear”), Cimbrian, Mòcheno per (“bear”), Dutch beer (“bear”), German Bär (“bear”), German Low German Boor (“bear”), Limburgish baer, Béër (“bear”), Luxembourgish Bier (“bear”), Vilamovian baor, bar (“bear”), West Flemish beir (“bear”), Yiddish בער (ber, “bear”), Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian Bokmål bjørn (“bear”), Icelandic, Swedish björn (“bear”), Norwegian Nynorsk bjøinn, bjønn, bjørn (“bear”), Gothic *𐌱𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌰 (*baira, “bear”). etymology notes This is generally taken to be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“shining, brown”) (compare Tocharian A parno, Tocharian B perne (“radiant, luminous”), Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”)), related to brown, bruin, and beaver. On this theory, the Germanic languages replaced the older name of the bear, *h₂ŕ̥tḱos, with the epithet "brown one", presumably due to taboo avoidance; compare Russian медве́дь (medvédʹ, “bear”, literally “honey-eater”). However, Ringe (2006:106) doubts the existence of a root *bʰer- meaning "brown" ("an actual PIE word of [the requisite] shape and meaning is not recoverable") and suggests that a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰwer- (“wild animal”) "should therefore perhaps be preferred", implying a Germanic merger of *ǵʰw and *gʷʰ (*gʷʰ may sometimes result in Germanic *b, perhaps e.g. in *bidjaną, but it also seems to have given the g in gun and the w in warm).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: baer,bbear,bearr,bera,ebar
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bear - 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 “bear”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-E-A-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɛə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “br” - see the side-by-side comparison. bear vs br
- 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.