bubble
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bubble", 6-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 "bubble" 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 "bubble" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bubble is aEnglishnoun. It means: A spherically contained volume of air or other gas, especially one made from soapy liquid. Pronounced /ˈbʌb.l̩/. It ranks #5,481 in English word frequency. Often confused with bugle and bundle.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bubble |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbʌb.l̩/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #5,481 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bubble is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbʌb.l̩/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,481 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 20 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for bubble, with forms such as "bbubble", "bbuble", and "bubbel". 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 11 confusable-pair relationships, "bugle", "bundle", "buckle", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Partly imitative, also influenced by burble. Compare Middle Dutch bobbe (“bubble”) > Dutch bubbel (“bubble”), Low German bubbel (“bubble”), Danish boble (“bubble”), Swedish bubbla (“bubble”). The word was first used in its economic sense in association with… 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 bubble, spelled B-U-B-B-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A spherically contained volume of air or other gas, especially one made from soapy liquid.
- 2A small spherical cavity in a solid material.
- 3Anything resembling a hollow sphere.
- 4Anything lacking firmness or solidity; a cheat or fraud; an empty project.
- 5A period of intense speculation in a market, causing prices to rise quickly to irrational levels as the metaphorical bubble expands, and then fall even more quickly as the bubble bursts.
- 6The emotional or physical atmosphere in which a subject is immersed; especially, a homogeneous atmosphere in which subjects are spared exposure to culture or ideas different from their own.
- 7An officer's station in a prison dormitory, affording views on all sides.
- 8Someone who has been ‘bubbled’ or fooled; a dupe.
- 9A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.
- 10The globule of air in the chamber of a spirit level.
- 11A laugh.
- 12A Greek.
- 13Any of the small magnetized areas that make up bubble memory.
- 14In a poker tournament, the point before which eliminated players receive no prize money and after which they do; the situation where all remaining players are guaranteed prize money (in this case, the players are said to have made the bubble); the situation where all remaining players will be guaranteed prize money after some small number of players are eliminated (in this case, the players are said to be on the bubble).
- 15The cutoff point between qualifying, advancing or being invited to a tournament, or having one's competition end.
- 16A quarantine environment containing multiple people or facilities isolated from the rest of society.
- 17The people who are in this quarantine.
- 18Ellipsis of travel bubble.
- 19A bulb or lamp; the part of a lighting assembly that actually produces the light.
- 20A specialized glass pipe having a sphere-shaped apparatus at one end.
Etymology
Partly imitative, also influenced by burble. Compare Middle Dutch bobbe (“bubble”) > Dutch bubbel (“bubble”), Low German bubbel (“bubble”), Danish boble (“bubble”), Swedish bubbla (“bubble”). The word was first used in its economic sense in association with the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720, based on the metaphor of an inflated soap bubble bursting.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbubble,bbuble,bubbel,bubblle,bublbe,buble,ubbble
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bubble
Misspelling Variants of "bubble"
Frequency rank: #5,481 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: