disburse
/dɪsˈbɝs/
"disburse" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“disburse” is uncommon English (frequency #77,603 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #77,603
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury.
Corpus desk
Index EN-disburse · disburse · English
disburse · rank #77,603 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #77,603
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH dislocate
Nearest frequency peer: dislocate (+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 “disburse”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- differentia…
differentiator
22,404 corpus weight
- Dillingham
Dillingham
22,403 corpus weight
- dimwitted
dimwitted
22,402 corpus weight
- disburse
disburse
22,398 corpus weight
- dislocate
dislocate
22,397 corpus weight
- DLF
DLF
22,392 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “disburse” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | disburse |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /dɪsˈbɝs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #77,603 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “disburse” in English
Rare enough to double-check
disburse is uncommon English at frequency #77,603 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /dɪsˈbɝs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for disburse, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. 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 Old French desbourser (Modern French débourser). By surface analysis, dis- + burse (“purse”). The correct English form is disburse, spelled D-I-S-B-U-R-S-E.
Definition
- 1To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how disburse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The consequent traffic is so grave that, last year, councils in England and Wales demanded that the government disburse £1bn a year to them so they could repair roads and tackle congestion.
Etymology
From Old French desbourser (Modern French débourser). By surface analysis, dis- + burse (“purse”).
This word in other languages
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 "disburse", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).