board
/bɔːd/
"board" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“board” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #567 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #567
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A relatively long, wide and thin piece of any material, usually wood or similar, often for use in construction or furniture-making.
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 | board |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɔːd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #567 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “board” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for board is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɔːd/. Corpus data places it at rank #567 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for board, with forms such as "baord", "bboard", and "boadr". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bod", "bor", "born", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: A wooden board Board (duplicate bridge) From Middle English boord, boorde, bord, bourd, burd, from Old English bord, from Proto-West Germanic *bord, from Proto-Germanic *burdą (“board, plank; edge; table”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰers- (“tip, top”) + *-… The correct English form is board, spelled B-O-A-R-D.
Definition
- 1A relatively long, wide and thin piece of any material, usually wood or similar, often for use in construction or furniture-making.
- 2A device (e.g., switchboard) containing electrical switches and other controls and designed to control lights, sound, telephone connections, etc.
- 3A flat surface with markings for playing a board game.
- 4Short for blackboard, whiteboard, chessboard, surfboard, circuit board, message board (on the Internet), bulletin board, etc.
- 5A committee that manages the business of an organization, e.g., a board of directors.
- 6Regular meals in a place of lodging; the price paid for them.
- 7The side of a ship.
- 8The distance a sailing vessel runs between tacks when working to windward.
- 9The wall that surrounds an ice hockey rink.
- 10A long, narrow table, like that used in a medieval dining hall.
- 11Paper made thick and stiff like a board, for book covers, etc.; pasteboard.
- 12A level or stage having a particular two-dimensional layout.
- 13The portion of the playing field where creatures or minions can be placed (or played, summoned, etc.).
- 14A container for holding pre-dealt cards that is used to allow multiple sets of players to play the same cards.
- 15A Philippine provincial or Uruguayan departmental assembly or council.
Etymology
A wooden board Board (duplicate bridge) From Middle English boord, boorde, bord, bourd, burd, from Old English bord, from Proto-West Germanic *bord, from Proto-Germanic *burdą (“board, plank; edge; table”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰers- (“tip, top”) + *-dʰh₁eti or *bʰerH- (“to pierce; to strike”) + *-dʰh₁eti. The senses "food" and "council" are by metonymy from the sense "table." Cognates Cognate with Scots buird (“board; table”), Yola borde (“table”), West Frisian boerd (“board”), Dutch bord (“dish, plate; board, plank; sign”), boord (“border, boundary; bank, shore”), German Bord (“shelf”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish bord (“plank; table”), Elfdalian buord (“table”), Faroese and Icelandic borð (“board, plank; table”), Gothic *𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌳 (*baurd, “board, plank”) (whence 𐍆𐍉𐍄𐌿𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌳 (fōtubaurd, “footstool”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: baord,bboard,boadr,boardd,boarrd,borad,obard
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of board - 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 “board”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-O-A-R-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɔːd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “bod” - see the side-by-side comparison. board vs bod
- 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.