bye
/baɪ/
"bye" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bye” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,674 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,674
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The position of a person or team in a tournament or competition who draws no opponent in a particular round so advances to the next round unopposed, or is awarded points for a win in a league table...
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 | bye |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /baɪ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #3,674 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bye” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bye is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /baɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,674 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
bye has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "BYU", "byte", "Byrne", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Variant form of by, from Old English bī (“being near”). The correct English form is bye, spelled B-Y-E.
Definition
- 1The position of a person or team in a tournament or competition who draws no opponent in a particular round so advances to the next round unopposed, or is awarded points for a win in a league table; also the phantom opponent of such a person or team.
- 2An extra scored when the batsmen take runs after the ball has passed the striker without hitting either the bat or the batsman.
- 3A thing not directly aimed at; a secondary or subsidiary object, course, path, undertaking, issue, etc.
- 4An unspecified way or place.
- 5A pass.
Etymology
Variant form of by, from Old English bī (“being near”).
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 “bye”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-Y-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /baɪ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “BYU” - see the side-by-side comparison. bye vs BYU
- 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.