belie
/bɪˈlaɪ/
"belie" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“belie” is uncommon English (frequency #55,947 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,947
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To lie around; encompass.
Corpus desk
Index EN-belie · belie · English
belie · rank #55,947 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,947
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH begone
Nearest frequency peer: begone (-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 “belie”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- basta
basta
44,058 corpus weight
- begone
begone
44,055 corpus weight
- belie
belie
44,054 corpus weight
- believeth
believeth
44,053 corpus weight
- Benidorm
Benidorm
44,052 corpus weight
- Bernardi
Bernardi
44,050 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “belie” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | belie |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɪˈlaɪ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #55,947 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “belie” in English
Rare enough to double-check
belie is uncommon English at frequency #55,947 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /bɪˈlaɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
belie has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English belyen, beliggen, from Old English beliċġan, biliċġan (“to lie around, surround, hedge in, encompass”), from Proto-West Germanic *biliggjan, from Proto-Germanic *biligjaną (“to lie around”). Equivalent to be- (“around, by”) + lie (“to be… The correct English form is belie, spelled B-E-L-I-E.
Definition
- 1To lie around; encompass.
- 2To surround; beleaguer.
Etymology
From Middle English belyen, beliggen, from Old English beliċġan, biliċġan (“to lie around, surround, hedge in, encompass”), from Proto-West Germanic *biliggjan, from Proto-Germanic *biligjaną (“to lie around”). Equivalent to be- (“around, by”) + lie (“to be positioned”).
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 "belie", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).