fastball
"fastball" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fastball” has 11 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #27,144. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #27,144
- frequency rank, English
- 18,613
- “F” headwords
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A high-speed pitch of a baseball.
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 | fastball |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #27,144 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fastball” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 11 spelling variants around fastball, anoun. Corpus frequency is #27,144 among 18,613 “F” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for fastball, with forms such as "afstball", "fasbtall", and "fasstball". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "football", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From fast (adjective) + ball. The correct English form is fastball, spelled F-A-S-T-B-A-L-L.
Definition
- 1A high-speed pitch of a baseball.
- 2A four-seam fastball, which is a backspin pitch thrown with a ball gripped in the direction to cause four of the seams of the ball to cross the flight path and released with roughly equal pressure by the index and middle fingers
Etymology
From fast (adjective) + ball.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- afstball
- fasbtall
- fasstball
- fastabll
- fastbal
- fastbball
- fastblal
- fasttball
- fatsball
- ffastball
- fsatball
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of fastball - 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 "fastball"?
What does "fastball" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "fastball"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “fastball”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-A-S-T-B-A-L-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “football” - see the side-by-side comparison. fastball vs football
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Same frequency band
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.