borage
/ˈbɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/
"borage" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“borage” is uncommon English (frequency #97,873 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #97,873
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Borago officinalis, a Mediterranean plant with rough, cucumber-flavored leaves and stems, used in salads and cooked.
Corpus desk
Index EN-borage · borage · English
borage · rank #97,873 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #97,873
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH bookmobile
Nearest frequency peer: bookmobile (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “borage”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- boli
boli
2,135 corpus weight
- boobed
boobed
2,131 corpus weight
- bookmobile
bookmobile
2,129 corpus weight
- borage
borage
2,128 corpus weight
- borohydride
borohydride
2,127 corpus weight
- bowstring
bowstring
2,122 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “borage” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | borage |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #97,873 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “borage” in English
Rare enough to double-check
borage is uncommon English at frequency #97,873 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈbɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Borago officinalis, a Mediterranean plant with rough, cucumber-flavored leaves and stems, used in salads and cooked.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for borage, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English borage, borrowed from Old French borage (compare French bourrache), from Medieval Latin borrago, either from Latin borra (“short wool, rough hair”) or Arabic أَبُو العَرَق (ʔabū l-ʕaraq, literally “father of sweat”). The correct English form is borage, spelled B-O-R-A-G-E.
Definition
- 1Borago officinalis, a Mediterranean plant with rough, cucumber-flavored leaves and stems, used in salads and cooked.
Etymology
From Middle English borage, borrowed from Old French borage (compare French bourrache), from Medieval Latin borrago, either from Latin borra (“short wool, rough hair”) or Arabic أَبُو العَرَق (ʔabū l-ʕaraq, literally “father of sweat”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
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 "borage", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).