bona fide
/ˌbəʊ.nəˈfaɪ.di/
"bona-fide" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bona fide” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In good faith; genuinely, sincerely.
Corpus desk
Index EN-bona-fide · bona fide · English
bona fide · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bona fide |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /ˌbəʊ.nəˈfaɪ.di/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bona fide” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
bona fide is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed /ˌbəʊ.nəˈfaɪ.di/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "In good faith; genuinely, sincerely.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for bona fide, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Unadapted borrowing from Latin bonā fidē (“in good faith”). The correct English form is bona fide, spelled B-O-N-A- -F-I-D-E.
Definition
- 1In good faith; genuinely, sincerely.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bona fide appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But by the knots I am speaking of, may it please your reverences to believe, that I mean good, honest, devilish tight, hard knots, made bona fide, as Obadiah made his; […]
Let thinking people, then, judge what must be the fate of a church, whose fundamental doctrines are disbelieved by men of sense and inquiry, whose articles are well known not to be subscribed bonâ fide by those who officiate in it […].
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from Latin bonā fidē (“in good faith”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
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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.