bird
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bird", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bird" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bird" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bird is aEnglishnoun. It means: An animal of the clade (traditionally class) Aves in the phylum Chordata, characterized by being warm-blooded, having feathers and wings usually capable of flight, having a beaked mouth, and laying... Pronounced /bɜːd/. It ranks #2,329 in English word frequency. Often confused with br and bit.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bird |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɜːd/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,329 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bird is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɜːd/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,329 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for bird, with forms such as "bbird", "bidr", and "birdd". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "br", "bit", "bro", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bird, brid, from Old English bridd (“chick, fledgling, chicken”), of uncertain origin (see Old English bridd for more). Originally from a term used of birds that could not fly (chicks, fledglings, chickens) as opposed to the general Old … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bird, spelled B-I-R-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An animal of the clade (traditionally class) Aves in the phylum Chordata, characterized by being warm-blooded, having feathers and wings usually capable of flight, having a beaked mouth, and laying eggs.
- 2A chicken; the young of a fowl; a young eaglet; a nestling.
- 3A chicken or turkey used as food.
- 4A man, fellow.
- 5A girl or woman, especially one considered sexually attractive.
- 6A girl or woman, especially one considered sexually attractive.
- 7An aircraft.
- 8A satellite.
- 9Booing and jeering, especially as done by an audience expressing displeasure at a performer.
- 10The vulgar hand gesture in which the middle finger is extended.
- 11A yardbird.
- 12A kilogram of cocaine.
- 13A penis.
- 14Snowbird (retiree who moves to a warmer climate).
Etymology
From Middle English bird, brid, from Old English bridd (“chick, fledgling, chicken”), of uncertain origin (see Old English bridd for more). Originally from a term used of birds that could not fly (chicks, fledglings, chickens) as opposed to the general Old English term for flying birds, fugol (modern fowl). Gradually replaced fowl as the most common term starting in the 14th century. The "booing/jeering" and "vulgar hand gesture" senses derived from the expression “to give the big bird”, as in “to hiss someone like a goose”, dated in the mid‐18th century.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbird,bidr,birdd,birrd,brid,ibrd
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bird
Misspelling Variants of "bird"
Frequency rank: #2,329 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: