believed
/bɪˈliːvd/
"believed" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“believed” has 11 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #1,810. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,810
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - simple past and past participle of believe
Corpus desk
Index EN-believed · believed · English
believed · rank #1,810 · 11 variants · 6 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,810
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 6 pairs
- VAR-MID 11 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH beauty
Nearest frequency peer: beauty (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “believed”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- wake
wake
98,194 corpus weight
- aid
aid
98,193 corpus weight
- beauty
beauty
98,192 corpus weight
- believed
believed
98,191 corpus weight
- billion
billion
98,190 corpus weight
- busy
busy
98,189 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “believed” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | believed |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɪˈliːvd/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #1,810 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “believed” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 11 spelling variants around believed (IPA /bɪˈliːvd/), averb. Corpus frequency is #1,810 among 4,121 “B” headwords. Dominant gloss: "simple past and past participle of believe".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for believed, with forms such as "bbelieved", "beileved", and "beleived". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 6 confusable-pair relationships, "belive", "beloved", "believes", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is believed, spelled B-E-L-I-E-V-E-D.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of believe
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- bbelieved
- beileved
- beleived
- belieevd
- believde
- believedd
- believved
- beliveed
- bellieved
- bleieved
- eblieved
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of believed - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "believed", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (11 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "believed". Here's where to go from here.
- "believed" maps to 6 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "belive". View pair
- 11 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #1,810 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "B" letter cohort. B–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.