bran
/ˈbɹæn/
"bran" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bran” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #19,539 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #19,539
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The broken coat of the seed of wheat, rye, or other cereal grain, separated from the flour or meal by sifting or bolting; the coarse, chaffy part of ground grain.
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 | bran |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɹæn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #19,539 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bran” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bran is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɹæn/. Corpus data places it at rank #19,539 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The broken coat of the seed of wheat, rye, or other cereal grain, separated from the flour or meal by sifting or bolting; the coarse, chaffy part of ground grain.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for bran, with forms such as "bbran", "brann", and "brna". 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, "bro", "bun", "BRB", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bran, branne, bren, from Old French bren, bran (“bran, filth”), from Gaulish brennos (“rotten”), from Proto-Celtic *bragnos (“rotten, foul”) (compare Welsh braen (“stench”), Irish bréan (“rancid”), Walloon brin (“excrement”)), from Proto… The correct English form is bran, spelled B-R-A-N.
Definition
- 1The broken coat of the seed of wheat, rye, or other cereal grain, separated from the flour or meal by sifting or bolting; the coarse, chaffy part of ground grain.
Etymology
From Middle English bran, branne, bren, from Old French bren, bran (“bran, filth”), from Gaulish brennos (“rotten”), from Proto-Celtic *bragnos (“rotten, foul”) (compare Welsh braen (“stench”), Irish bréan (“rancid”), Walloon brin (“excrement”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreHg- (compare Latin fragrāre (“to smell strongly”), Dutch brak (“hound”)).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbran,brann,brna,brran,rban
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bran - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “bran”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-R-A-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɹæn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “bro” - see the side-by-side comparison. bran vs bro
- 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.