beaver
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 "beaver", 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 "beaver" 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 "beaver" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
beaver is aEnglishnoun. It means: A semiaquatic rodent of the genus Castor, having a wide, flat tail and webbed feet, native to the Northern Hemisphere. Pronounced /ˈbiːvə/. Often confused with beer and brave.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | beaver |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbiːvə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #12,733 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for beaver is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbiːvə/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,733 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 12 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 beaver, with forms such as "baever", "bbeaver", and "beaevr". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "beer", "brave", "bevel", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bever, from Old English befer, from Proto-West Germanic *bebru, from Proto-Germanic *bebruz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰébʰrus (“beaver”). Cognate with West Frisian bever, Dutch bever, French bièvre, German Biber, dialectal Swedish bjur… 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 beaver, spelled B-E-A-V-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A semiaquatic rodent of the genus Castor, having a wide, flat tail and webbed feet, native to the Northern Hemisphere.
- 2The fur of the beaver.
- 3A hat, of various shapes, made from a felted beaver fur (or later of silk), fashionable in Europe between 1550 and 1850.
- 4Beaver pelts as an article of exchange or as a standard of value.
- 5Beaver cloth, a heavy felted woollen cloth, used chiefly for making overcoats.
- 6A brown colour, like that of a beaver.
- 7A move in response to being doubled, in which one immediately doubles the stakes again, keeping the doubling cube on one’s own side of the board.
- 8Alternative letter-case form of Beaver (“member of the youngest wing of the Scout movement”).
- 9A beard or a bearded person.
- 10A game, in which points are scored by spotting beards.
- 11The pubic hair near a vulva or a vulva itself; (attributively) denoting films or literature featuring nude women.
- 12A woman, especially one who is sexually attractive.
Etymology
From Middle English bever, from Old English befer, from Proto-West Germanic *bebru, from Proto-Germanic *bebruz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰébʰrus (“beaver”). Cognate with West Frisian bever, Dutch bever, French bièvre, German Biber, dialectal Swedish bjur. Non-Germanic cognates include Welsh befer, Latin fiber, Lithuanian bẽbras, Russian бобр (bobr), Avestan 𐬠𐬀𐬎𐬎𐬭𐬀 (bauura), and Sanskrit बभ्रु (bábhru, “mongoose; ichneumon”). Slang use to refer to a woman evolved from use to refer to pubic hair, which evolved from use to refer to beards, which evolved from use to refer to the furry animal or its fur.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: baever,bbeaver,beaevr,beaverr,beavre,beavver,bevaer,ebaver
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for beaver
Misspelling Variants of "beaver"
Frequency rank: #12,733 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: