breadcrumb
/ˈbɹɛdˌkɹʌm/
"breadcrumb" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“breadcrumb” is an uncommon English word, ranked #88,146 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #88,146
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A tiny piece of bread, either one that falls from bread as it is cut or eaten, or one made deliberately by crumbling bread.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | breadcrumb |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɹɛdˌkɹʌm/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #88,146 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “breadcrumb” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for breadcrumb is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɹɛdˌkɹʌm/. Corpus data places it at rank #88,146 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for breadcrumb, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From bread + crumb. The computing and figurative senses allude to the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, where Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs to find the way back home when venturing into the woods. The correct English form is breadcrumb, spelled B-R-E-A-D-C-R-U-M-B.
Definition
- 1A tiny piece of bread, either one that falls from bread as it is cut or eaten, or one made deliberately by crumbling bread.
- 2A single link in a chain indicating the hierarchical location of a directory, web page or similar, used as a navigation aid.
- 3A fragment of data that serves to log the actions taken by a program, used in debugging.
- 4One in a series of clues leading to a person or place.
Etymology
From bread + crumb. The computing and figurative senses allude to the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, where Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs to find the way back home when venturing into the woods.
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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Using “breadcrumb”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-R-E-A-D-C-R-U-M-B - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɹɛdˌkɹʌm/ (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.