blade
/bleɪd/
"blade" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“blade” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #5,191. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #5,191
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
Corpus desk
Index EN-blade · blade · English
blade · rank #5,191 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,191
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH beside
Nearest frequency peer: beside (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “blade”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- bacteria
bacteria
94,813 corpus weight
- beings
beings
94,812 corpus weight
- beside
beside
94,811 corpus weight
- blade
blade
94,810 corpus weight
- boot
boot
94,809 corpus weight
- bottles
bottles
94,808 corpus weight
What this shows “blade” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | blade |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bleɪd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,191 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “blade”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around blade (IPA /bleɪd/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #5,191 among 4,121 “B” headwords. Wiktionary lists 26 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for blade, with forms such as "balde", "bblade", and "bladde". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "BLE", "blue", "brad", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English blade, blad, from Old English blæd (“leaf”), from Proto-West Germanic *blad, from Proto-Germanic *bladą, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰl̥h₃-o-to-m, from *bʰleh₃- (“to thrive, bloom”). See also West Frisian bled, Dutch blad, German Blatt, D… The correct English form is blade, spelled B-L-A-D-E.
Definition
- 1The (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
- 2The (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
- 3The (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
- 4The flat functional end or piece of a propeller, oar, hockey stick, chisel, screwdriver, skate, etc.
- 5The narrow leaf of a grass or cereal.
- 6The thin, flat part of a plant leaf, attached to a stem (petiole).
- 7A flat bone, especially the shoulder blade.
- 8A cut of beef from near the shoulder blade (part of the chuck).
- 9The part of the tongue just behind the tip, used to make laminal consonants.
- 10A piece of prepared, sharp-edged stone, often flint, at least twice as long as it is wide; a long flake of ground-edge stone or knapped vitreous stone.
- 11A throw characterized by a tight parabolic trajectory due to a steep lateral attitude.
- 12The rudder, daggerboard, or centerboard of a vessel.
- 13A bulldozer or surface-grading machine with mechanically adjustable blade that is nominally perpendicular to the forward motion of the vehicle.
- 14A dashing young man.
- 15A homosexual, usually male.
- 16An area of a city which is commonly known for prostitution.
- 17Thin plate, foil.
- 18One of a series of small plates that make up the aperture or the shutter of a camera.
- 19The principal rafters of a roof.
- 20The four large shell plates on the sides, and the five large ones of the middle, of the carapace of the sea turtle, which yield the best tortoise shell.
- 21Ellipsis of blade server.
- 22Synonym of knifeblade.
- 23An exterior product of vectors. (The product may have more than two factors. Also, a scalar counts as a 0-blade, a vector as a 1-blade; an exterior product of k vectors may be called a k-blade.)
- 24The part of a key that is inserted into the lock.
- 25An artificial foot used by amputee athletes, shaped like an upside-down question mark.
- 26The quality of singing with a pure, resonant sound; especially of a countertenor.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how blade appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Sword. — The blade is straight, tapers gradually, is 32 9/16 inches long from shoulder to point, and is fullered on both sides, commencing 2 inches from the shoulder, to about 17 inches from the point, to a thickness of ·035 inch.
Paul: Give the Harkonnen a blade and let him stand forth. Shaddam IV: If Feyd wishes, he can meet you with my blade in his hand.
Etymology
From Middle English blade, blad, from Old English blæd (“leaf”), from Proto-West Germanic *blad, from Proto-Germanic *bladą, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰl̥h₃-o-to-m, from *bʰleh₃- (“to thrive, bloom”). See also West Frisian bled, Dutch blad, German Blatt, Danish blad, Irish bláth (“flower”), Welsh blodyn (“flower”), Tocharian A pält, Tocharian B pilta (“leaf”), Albanian fletë (“leaf”). Similar usage in German Sägeblatt (“saw blade”, literally “saw leaf”). Doublet of blat. More at blow.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- balde
- bblade
- bladde
- blaed
- bldae
- bllade
- lbade
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of blade - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "blade", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).