bits
/bɪts/
"bits" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bits” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,299 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,299
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - plural of bit
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 | bits |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɪts/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,299 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bits” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bits is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɪts/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,299 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "plural of bit".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for bits, with forms such as "bbits", "bist", and "bitss". 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", "Bt", "but", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is bits, spelled B-I-T-S.
Definition
- 1plural of bit
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbits,bist,bitss,bitts,btis,ibts
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bits - 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 “bits”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-I-T-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɪts/ (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. bits 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.