broch
/ˈbɹɒx/
"broch" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“broch” is uncommon English (frequency #92,411 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #92,411
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A type of Iron Age stone tower with hollow double-layered walls found on Orkney, Shetland, in the Hebrides and parts of the Scottish mainland.
Corpus desk
Index EN-broch · broch · English
broch · rank #92,411 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #92,411
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH Brotherton
Nearest frequency peer: Brotherton (+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.
Long-tail ranks near “broch”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- bricking
bricking
7,593 corpus weight
- Brideshead
Brideshead
7,592 corpus weight
- broch
broch
7,590 corpus weight
- Brotherton
Brotherton
7,589 corpus weight
- bruck
bruck
7,588 corpus weight
- brutalism
brutalism
7,587 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “broch” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | broch |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɹɒx/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #92,411 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “broch” in English
Rare enough to double-check
broch is uncommon English at frequency #92,411 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈbɹɒx/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A type of Iron Age stone tower with hollow double-layered walls found on Orkney, Shetland, in the Hebrides and parts of the Scottish mainland.".
broch doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Scots broch, from Old Norse borg, from Proto-Germanic *burgz. Doublet of borough and burgh. The correct English form is broch, spelled B-R-O-C-H.
Definition
- 1A type of Iron Age stone tower with hollow double-layered walls found on Orkney, Shetland, in the Hebrides and parts of the Scottish mainland.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how broch appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Finella's carles builded the Kaimes, a long line of battlements under the hills, midway a tower that was older still, a broch from the days of the Pictish men […].
The last man slid the bolt in the single low narrow door. The broch was impregnable then.
Etymology
From Scots broch, from Old Norse borg, from Proto-Germanic *burgz. Doublet of borough and burgh.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "broch", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).