buoy
/ˈbɔɪ/
"buoy" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“buoy” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #28,856 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #28,856
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes
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 | buoy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɔɪ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #28,856 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “buoy” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for buoy is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɔɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #28,856 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for buoy, with forms such as "bbuoy", "bouy", and "buoyy". 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, "by", "but", "buy", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English boy, boye, from Middle Dutch boeye (“float, buoy”), from Old French boue (“piece of wood or cork that floats above an anchor to indicate where it is anchored”) (modern French bouée), ultimately from Frankish *baukn (“beacon”). Doublet of… The correct English form is buoy, spelled B-U-O-Y.
Definition
- 1A float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes
- 2A float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes
- 3A sign where the non-dominant hand is held in a stationary configuration as a landmark for meaning associations with the dominant hand.
Etymology
From Middle English boy, boye, from Middle Dutch boeye (“float, buoy”), from Old French boue (“piece of wood or cork that floats above an anchor to indicate where it is anchored”) (modern French bouée), ultimately from Frankish *baukn (“beacon”). Doublet of beacon. Same root as English bon in bonfire. Alternatively, and perhaps less likely (due to the unexplained shift in meaning), from Middle Dutch boeye (“shackle, fetter”), from Old French buie (“fetter, chain”), from Latin boia (“a (leather) collar, band, fetter”), from Ancient Greek βόεος (bóeos), βόειος (bóeios, “of ox-hide”), from βοῦς (boûs, “ox”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (“cow”). Noun sense 2 was coined by American linguist Scott K. Lindell in 2003.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbuoy,bouy,buoyy,buyo,uboy
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of buoy - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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
How do you spell "buoy"?
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Using “buoy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-U-O-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɔɪ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “by” - see the side-by-side comparison. buoy vs by
- 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.