farm
/fɑːm/
"farm" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“farm” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,824 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,824
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A place where agricultural and similar activities take place, especially the growing of crops or the raising of livestock.
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 | farm |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fɑːm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,824 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “farm” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for farm is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fɑːm/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,824 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for farm, with forms such as "afrm", "famr", and "farmm". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "FM", "for", "fat", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English ferme, farme (“rent, revenue, produce, factor, stewardship, meal, feast”), influenced by Anglo-Norman ferme (“rent, lease, farm”), from Medieval Latin ferma, firma. There is debate as to whether Medieval Latin acquired this ter… The correct English form is farm, spelled F-A-R-M.
Definition
- 1A place where agricultural and similar activities take place, especially the growing of crops or the raising of livestock.
- 2A tract of land held on lease for the purpose of cultivation.
- 3A location used for an industrial purpose, having many similar structures.
- 4A group of coordinated servers.
- 5Food; provisions; a meal.
- 6A banquet; feast.
- 7A fixed yearly amount (food, provisions, money, etc.) payable as rent or tax.
- 8A fixed yearly sum accepted from a person as a composition for taxes or other moneys which he is empowered to collect; also, a fixed charge imposed on a town, county, etc., in respect of a tax or taxes to be collected within its limits.
- 9The letting-out of public revenue to a ‘farmer’; the privilege of farming a tax or taxes.
- 10The body of farmers of public revenues.
- 11The condition of being let at a fixed rent; lease; a lease.
- 12A baby farm.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English ferme, farme (“rent, revenue, produce, factor, stewardship, meal, feast”), influenced by Anglo-Norman ferme (“rent, lease, farm”), from Medieval Latin ferma, firma. There is debate as to whether Medieval Latin acquired this term from Old English feorm (“rent, provision, supplies, feast”), from Proto-Germanic *fermō, *firhuma- (“means of living, subsistence”), from Proto-Germanic *ferhwō (“life force, body, being”), from Proto-Indo-European *perkʷ- (“life, force, strength, tree”); or from Latin firmus (“solid, secure”), from Proto-Italic *fermos, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer-mo-s (“holding”), from the root *dʰer- (“to hold”). If the former etymology is correct, the term is related to Old English feorh (“life, spirit”), Icelandic fjör (“life, vitality, vigour, animation”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐍈𐌿𐍃 (fairƕus, “the world”). Compare also Old English feormehām (“farm”), feormere (“purveyor, supplier, grocer”). Cognate with Scots ferm (“rent, farm”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: afrm,famr,farmm,farrm,ffarm,fram
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of farm - 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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Using “farm”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-A-R-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fɑːm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “FM” - see the side-by-side comparison. farm vs FM
- 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.