brand
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "brand", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "brand" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "brand" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
brand is aEnglishnoun. It means: A mark or scar made by burning with a hot iron, especially to mark cattle or to classify the contents of a cask. Pronounced /bɹænd/. It ranks #1,553 in English word frequency. Often confused with bred and brat.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | brand |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɹænd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,553 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for brand is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɹænd/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,553 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for brand, with forms such as "barnd", "bbrand", and "bradn". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bred", "brat", "bray", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English brand, from Old English brand (“fire; flame; burning; torch; sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *brand, from Proto-Germanic *brandaz (“flame; flaming; fire-brand; torch; sword”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrenu- (“to bubble forth; brew; … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is brand, spelled B-R-A-N-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A mark or scar made by burning with a hot iron, especially to mark cattle or to classify the contents of a cask.
- 2A branding iron.
- 3The symbolic identity, represented by a name and/or a logo, which indicates a certain product or service to the public.
- 4A specific product, service, or provider so distinguished.
- 5Any specific type or variety of something; a distinct style or manner.
- 6The public image or reputation and recognized, typical style of an individual or group.
- 7A mark of infamy; stigma.
- 8Any minute fungus producing a burnt appearance in plants.
- 9A torch used for signaling.
- 10A flame.
- 11A conflagration.
- 12A piece of burning wood or peat, or a glowing cinder.
- 13A sword.
Etymology
From Middle English brand, from Old English brand (“fire; flame; burning; torch; sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *brand, from Proto-Germanic *brandaz (“flame; flaming; fire-brand; torch; sword”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrenu- (“to bubble forth; brew; spew forth; burn”). Cognate with Scots brand, West Frisian brân (“fire”), Dutch brand, German Brand, Danish brand, Swedish brand (“blaze, fire”), Icelandic brandur, French brand (< Germanic). More distantly cognate with Proto-Slavic *gorěti (“to burn”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: barnd,bbrand,bradn,brandd,brannd,brnad,brrand,rband
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for brand
Misspelling Variants of "brand"
Frequency rank: #1,553 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: