flab
/flæb/
"flab" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“flab” is uncommon English (frequency #69,855 among 2,507 “F” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #69,855
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Soft, loose flesh on a person's body; fat.
Corpus desk
Index EN-flab · flab · English
flab · rank #69,855 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #69,855
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH fingerboard
Nearest frequency peer: fingerboard (-2 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 “flab”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Fenech
Fenech
30,151 corpus weight
- figo
figo
30,149 corpus weight
- fingerboard
fingerboard
30,148 corpus weight
- flab
flab
30,146 corpus weight
- fluffed
fluffed
30,144 corpus weight
- footstep
footstep
30,140 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “flab” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | flab |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /flæb/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #69,855 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “flab” in English
Rare enough to double-check
flab is uncommon English at frequency #69,855 among 2,507 “F” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /flæb/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Soft, loose flesh on a person's body; fat.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for flab, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Back-formation from flabby. The correct English form is flab, spelled F-L-A-B.
Definition
- 1Soft, loose flesh on a person's body; fat.
Etymology
Back-formation from flabby.
Synonyms
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 "flab", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).