fum
/fʌm/
"fum" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fum” is uncommon English (frequency #89,385 among 2,507 “F” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,385
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To play upon a fiddle.
Corpus desk
Index EN-fum · fum · English
fum · rank #89,385 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #89,385
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH fursuit
Nearest frequency peer: fursuit (+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.
Long-tail ranks near “fum”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- frilled
frilled
10,621 corpus weight
- friz
friz
10,620 corpus weight
- fum
fum
10,616 corpus weight
- fursuit
fursuit
10,615 corpus weight
- gadgetry
gadgetry
10,611 corpus weight
- Gagan
Gagan
10,610 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “fum” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fum |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /fʌm/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #89,385 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “fum” in English
Rare enough to double-check
fum is uncommon English at frequency #89,385 among 2,507 “F” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /fʌm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To play upon a fiddle.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for fum in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is fum, spelled F-U-M.
Definition
- 1To play upon a fiddle.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how fum appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Follow me, and fum as you go.
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 "fum", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).