foobar
/ˈfuːˌbɑː(ɹ)/
"foobar" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“foobar” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A serious mistake.
Corpus desk
Index EN-foobar · foobar · English
foobar · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "F" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | foobar |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈfuːˌbɑː(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “foobar” in English
Rare enough to double-check
foobar is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈfuːˌbɑː(ɹ)/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for foobar in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Phonetic spelling of FUBAR, which is either an acronym for "fucked up beyond all recognition", or derived from foo. The correct English form is foobar, spelled F-O-O-B-A-R.
Definition
- 1A serious mistake.
- 2A metasyntactic variable name, a place holder for words; compare foo, bar.
Etymology
Phonetic spelling of FUBAR, which is either an acronym for "fucked up beyond all recognition", or derived from foo.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.