befell
/bɪˈfɛl/
"befell" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“befell” is uncommon English (frequency #50,381 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,381
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - simple past of befall
Corpus desk
Index EN-befell · befell · English
befell · rank #50,381 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #50,381
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH beekeeper
Nearest frequency peer: beekeeper (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “befell”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- batik
batik
49,624 corpus weight
- bayless
bayless
49,622 corpus weight
- beekeeper
beekeeper
49,621 corpus weight
- befell
befell
49,620 corpus weight
- bewitching
bewitching
49,617 corpus weight
- Bibby
Bibby
49,615 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “befell” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | befell |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɪˈfɛl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #50,381 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “befell” in English
Rare enough to double-check
befell is uncommon English at frequency #50,381 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /bɪˈfɛl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "simple past of befall".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for befell, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is befell, spelled B-E-F-E-L-L.
Definition
- 1simple past 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "befell", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).