befallen
/bɪˈfɔlən/
"befallen" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“befallen” is uncommon English (frequency #59,218 among 31,241 “B” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,218
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - past participle of befall
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | befallen |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɪˈfɔlən/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #59,218 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “befallen” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
befallen is uncommon English at frequency #59,218 among 31,241 “B” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /bɪˈfɔlən/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "past participle of befall".
Zero misspellings are on record for befallen in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is befallen, spelled B-E-F-A-L-L-E-N.
Definition
- 1past participle of befall
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 “befallen”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-E-F-A-L-L-E-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɪˈfɔlən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.