billow
/ˈbɪloʊ/
"billow" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“billow” is uncommon English (frequency #82,098 among 31,241 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #82,098
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | billow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɪloʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #82,098 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “billow” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
billow is uncommon English at frequency #82,098 among 31,241 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈbɪloʊ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound".
No misspelling variants are generated for billow in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English *bilwe, borrowed from Old Norse bylgja, from Proto-Germanic *bulgijō. Cognates include Danish bølge (“wave”); Norwegian Bokmål bølge (“wave”), Norwegian Nynorsk bylgje (“wave”); Swedish bölja (“wave”); German Low German Bulge, Bulg, Bülg… The correct English form is billow, spelled B-I-L-L-O-W.
Definition
- 1A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound
Etymology
From Middle English *bilwe, borrowed from Old Norse bylgja, from Proto-Germanic *bulgijō. Cognates include Danish bølge (“wave”); Norwegian Bokmål bølge (“wave”), Norwegian Nynorsk bylgje (“wave”); Swedish bölja (“wave”); German Low German Bulge, Bulg, Bülg (“billow, wave”); German Bulge (“billow, wave”). Compare bellow, bawl.
This word in other languages
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 “billow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-I-L-L-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɪloʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.