bread
/brɛd/
"bread" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bread” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #2,981. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #2,981
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.
Corpus desk
Index EN-bread · bread · English
bread · rank #2,981 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #2,981
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH attempts
Nearest frequency peer: attempts (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “bread”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- approval
approval
97,023 corpus weight
- aspects
aspects
97,022 corpus weight
- attempts
attempts
97,021 corpus weight
- bread
bread
97,020 corpus weight
- burning
burning
97,019 corpus weight
- contain
contain
97,017 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “bread” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | bread |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /brɛd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,981 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bread” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around bread (IPA /brɛd/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #2,981 among 4,121 “B” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for bread, with forms such as "bbread", "berad", and "braed". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bred", "brew", "bree", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁-der.? Proto-Germanic *braudą Proto-West Germanic *braud Old English brēad Middle English bred English bread From Middle English bred, breed, from Old English brēad (“fragment, bit, morsel, crumb", also "bread”), f… The correct English form is bread, spelled B-R-E-A-D.
Definition
- 1A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.
- 2A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.
- 3Food; sustenance; support of life, in general.
- 4Any variety of bread.
- 5Money.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bread appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We made sandwiches with the bread we bought from the bakery.
My mother used to send me for the bread.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁-der.? Proto-Germanic *braudą Proto-West Germanic *braud Old English brēad Middle English bred English bread From Middle English bred, breed, from Old English brēad (“fragment, bit, morsel, crumb", also "bread”), from Proto-West Germanic *braud, from Proto-Germanic *braudą (“bread”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerw-, *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil; to brew”), from *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”). Alternatively, from Proto-Germanic *braudaz, *brauþaz (“broken piece, fragment”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰera- (“to split, beat, hew, struggle”) (see brittle). Perhaps a conflation of the two. Possibly a doublet of broa. Cognates Cognate with Scots breid (“bread”), Yola breed (“bread”), North Frisian bruad, Bruar, brüüdj (“bread”), Saterland Frisian Brood (“bread”), West Frisian brea (“bread”), Alemannic German brot, broud, bruat, bròt, bröt (“bread”), Cimbrian proat, pròat (“bread”), Dutch brood (“bread”), German Brod, Brot (“bread”), German Low German Brod, Brood, Broot, Brot, Bräot (“bread”), Limburgish broed (“bread”), Luxembourgish Brout (“bread”), Mòcheno proat (“bread”), Vilamovian brūt (“bread; loaf”), Yiddish ברויט (broyt, “bread”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål brød (“bread”), Elfdalian broð (“bread”), Faroese breyð (“bread”), Icelandic brauð (“bread”), Norn brau, brow (“bread”), Norwegian Nynorsk braud, brød (“bread”), Swedish bröd (“bread”), Crimean Gothic broe (“bread”); also Cornish brys (“thought; mind”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic beir (“bear, give birth to”), Welsh bryd (“aim, intent”), Latin fors (“chance, luck”), Greek φέρνω (férno), φέρω (féro, “to bear, carry”), Albanian brydh (“to ripen, soften; to crumble”), Latvian bērt (“to pour; to scatter, strew”), Lithuanian berti (“to scatter, strew”), Belarusian бру́ха (brúxa, “belly”), Czech břich, břicho, břuch (“belly”), Kashubian brzëch (“belly”), Polish brzuch, brzucho (“belly”), Russian брю́хо (brjúxo, “belly”), Slovak brucho (“belly”), Armenian բերել (berel, “to bring, fetch”), Persian بردن (bordan/burdan, “to bear, carry”), Tocharian A and Tocharian B pär- (“to bear; to wear”), Sanskrit भारयति (bhārayati, “to carry”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English payn (“bread”), borrowed from Old French pain (“bread”). In this sense, mostly replaced loaf, which had been the more common term in Old English (see hlaf), a process which similarly occured in other languages such as German.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- bbread
- berad
- braed
- breadd
- breda
- brread
- rbead
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bread - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bread", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "bread". Here's where to go from here.
- "bread" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "bred". View pair
- 7 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #2,981 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "B" letter cohort. B–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.