bork
/bɔːk/
"bork" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bork” is an uncommon English word, ranked #52,817 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #52,817
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To defeat a person's appointment or election, judicial nomination, etc., through a concerted attack on the person's character, background, and philosophy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bork |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɔːk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #52,817 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bork” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bork is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɔːk/. Corpus data places it at rank #52,817 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "To defeat a person's appointment or election, judicial nomination, etc., through a concerted attack on the person's character, background, and philosophy.".
bork has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: A reference to the unsuccessful 1987 United States Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork (1927–2012); first appeared in print that same year. The correct English form is bork, spelled B-O-R-K.
Definition
- 1To defeat a person's appointment or election, judicial nomination, etc., through a concerted attack on the person's character, background, and philosophy.
Etymology
A reference to the unsuccessful 1987 United States Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork (1927–2012); first appeared in print that same year.
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 “bork”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-O-R-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɔːk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.