bulky
/ˈbʌlki/
"bulky" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bulky” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #19,545. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #19,545
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Being large in size, mass, or volume; big, fat or muscular.
Corpus desk
Index EN-bulky · bulky · English
bulky · rank #19,545 · 8 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #19,545
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH bubba
Nearest frequency peer: bubba (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “bulky”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- bribes
bribes
80,460 corpus weight
- brigadier
brigadier
80,459 corpus weight
- broaden
broaden
80,458 corpus weight
- bubba
bubba
80,457 corpus weight
- bulky
bulky
80,456 corpus weight
- Busch
Busch
80,454 corpus weight
What this shows “bulky” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | bulky |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈbʌlki/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #19,545 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “bulky”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around bulky (IPA /ˈbʌlki/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #19,545 among 4,121 “B” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for bulky, with forms such as "bbulky", "bluky", and "bukly". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "buy", "busy", "bull", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bulki, boulky, equivalent to bulk + -y. The correct English form is bulky, spelled B-U-L-K-Y.
Definition
- 1Being large in size, mass, or volume; big, fat or muscular.
- 2Unwieldy.
- 3Having excess body mass, especially muscle.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bulky appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Action such as this, filmed under great difficulty with a bulky, hand-cranked camera, revealed the possibilities of the movies and was quite startling in those early days.
Needless to say, one's seat must be booked in advance and a platoon of urbane officials, one to each door of the train, awaits passengers to usher them to their seats and relieve them of their bulkier baggage.
Etymology
From Middle English bulki, boulky, equivalent to bulk + -y.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- bbulky
- bluky
- bukly
- bulkky
- bulkyy
- bullky
- bulyk
- ublky
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bulky - 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bulky", 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 (8 here; floor ≥5).