gibe
"gibe" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gibe” is uncommon English (frequency #98,157 among 2,313 “G” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #98,157
- frequency rank, English
- 2,313
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative spelling of gybe.
Corpus desk
Index EN-gibe · gibe · English
gibe · rank #98,157 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #98,157
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,313
- PHOTO-FINISH generalship
Nearest frequency peer: generalship (-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 “gibe”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Garr
Garr
1,851 corpus weight
- generalship
generalship
1,846 corpus weight
- gibe
gibe
1,844 corpus weight
- gip
gip
1,840 corpus weight
- gladius
gladius
1,837 corpus weight
- glibly
glibly
1,836 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “gibe” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gibe |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #98,157 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “gibe” in English
Rare enough to double-check
gibe is uncommon English at frequency #98,157 among 2,313 “G” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for gibe 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, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is gibe, spelled G-I-B-E.
Definition
- 1Alternative spelling of gybe.
- 2Alternative spelling of jibe (“facetious or insulting remark”).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how gibe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Alas poore Yoricke, […] where be your gibes now? your gamboles? your ſongs? your flaſhes of merriment, that were wont to ſet the table on a roare, not one now to mocke your owne grinning, quite chopfalne.
[George] Carlin's opening-night monologue included some blunt gibes at organized religion which would almost certainly have been cut out of any other network show.
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 "gibe", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).