bias
/ˈbaɪ.əs/
"bias" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bias” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,297 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,297
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Inclination towards something.
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 | bias |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbaɪ.əs/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,297 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bias” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bias is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbaɪ.əs/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,297 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for bias, with forms such as "bais", "bbias", and "biass". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "BS", "big", "bit", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: c. 1520 in the sense "oblique line". As a technical term in the game of bowls c. 1560, whence the figurative use (c. 1570). From Middle French biais, adverbially ("sideways, askance, against the grain") c. 1250, as a noun ("oblique angle, slant") from the l… The correct English form is bias, spelled B-I-A-S.
Definition
- 1Inclination towards something.
- 2The diagonal line between warp and weft in a woven fabric.
- 3A wedge-shaped piece of cloth taken out of a garment (such as the waist of a dress) to diminish its circumference.
- 4A voltage or current applied to an electronic device, such as a transistor electrode, to move its operating point to a desired part of its transfer function.
- 5The difference between the expectation of the sample estimator and the true population value, which reduces the representativeness of the estimator by systematically distorting it.
- 6In the games of crown green bowls and lawn bowls: a weight added to one side of a bowl so that as it rolls, it will follow a curved rather than a straight path; the oblique line followed by such a bowl; the lopsided shape or structure of such a bowl. In lawn bowls, the curved course is caused only by the shape of the bowl. The use of weights is prohibited.
- 7A person's favourite member of a K-pop band.
Etymology
c. 1520 in the sense "oblique line". As a technical term in the game of bowls c. 1560, whence the figurative use (c. 1570). From Middle French biais, adverbially ("sideways, askance, against the grain") c. 1250, as a noun ("oblique angle, slant") from the late 16th century. The French word is likely from Old Occitan biais, itself of obscure origin, most likely from Vulgar Latin *biaxius (“with two axes”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bais,bbias,biass,bisa,ibas
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bias - 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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Using “bias”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-I-A-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbaɪ.əs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “BS” - see the side-by-side comparison. bias vs BS
- 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.