bellow
/ˈbɛloʊ/
"bellow" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bellow” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #37,338 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #37,338
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The deep roar of a large animal, or any similar loud noise.
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 | bellow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɛloʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #37,338 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bellow” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bellow is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɛloʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #37,338 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The deep roar of a large animal, or any similar loud noise.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for bellow, with forms such as "bbellow", "belloww", and "bellwo". 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 15 confusable-pair relationships, "blow", "Belo", "below", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English belwen, from Old English belgan, bylgan (“to become angry, to swell with rage”), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to sound, roar”), whence also belg (“leather bag”), bellan (“to roar”), blāwan (“to blow”). Cognate with Ge… The correct English form is bellow, spelled B-E-L-L-O-W.
Definition
- 1The deep roar of a large animal, or any similar loud noise.
Etymology
From Middle English belwen, from Old English belgan, bylgan (“to become angry, to swell with rage”), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to sound, roar”), whence also belg (“leather bag”), bellan (“to roar”), blāwan (“to blow”). Cognate with German bellen (“to bark”), Russian бле́ять (bléjatʹ, “baa, bleat”). Compare billow (“wave”), of the same root, also bulge, with related etymology to swelling. Potentially related to bawl, Swedish böl (“bawl”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbellow,belloww,bellwo,belolw,blelow,ebllow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bellow - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “bellow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-E-L-L-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɛloʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “blow” - see the side-by-side comparison. bellow vs blow
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.