FSB
"fsb" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“FSB” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #32,815) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #32,815
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.
Corpus desk
Index EN-fsb · FSB · English
FSB · rank #32,815 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #32,815
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-0 0 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH Gabriella
Nearest frequency peer: Gabriella (+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.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “FSB”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- fouling
fouling
67,190 corpus weight
- frills
frills
67,188 corpus weight
- FSB
FSB
67,186 corpus weight
- Gabriella
Gabriella
67,185 corpus weight
- gagged
gagged
67,184 corpus weight
- ganga
ganga
67,182 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “FSB” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | FSB |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #32,815 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “FSB”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for FSB is neighbouring look-alikes ("fu", "FW", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun. Frequency #32,815 among 2,507 “F” headwords. Gloss: "The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.".
No misspelling variants are generated for FSB in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fu", "FW", "fy", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Russian ФСБ (FSB), initialism of Федеральная Служба Безопасности (Federalʹnaja Služba Bezopasnosti, “Federal Security Service”). The correct English form is FSB, spelled F-S-B.
Definition
- 1The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how FSB appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Possible victims included Roman Tsepov, Putin’s bodyguard in 1990s St Petersburg, who died after drinking tea in 2004 at a local FSB office.
Krasikov, a former high-ranking FSB colonel serving a life sentence in a German prison, was on the top of Moscow’s list of Russian prisoners it wanted to exchange.
Etymology
From Russian ФСБ (FSB), initialism of Федеральная Служба Безопасности (Federalʹnaja Služba Bezopasnosti, “Federal Security Service”).
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 "FSB", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).