kai
/kaɪ̯/
"kai" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“kai” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #10,070) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #10,070
- frequency rank, English
- 1,236
- “K” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Food.
Corpus desk
Index EN-kai · kai · English
kai · rank #10,070 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #10,070
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,236
- PHOTO-FINISH jelly
Nearest frequency peer: jelly (-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 “kai”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- insufficient
insufficient
89,934 corpus weight
- interval
interval
89,933 corpus weight
- jelly
jelly
89,932 corpus weight
- kai
kai
89,931 corpus weight
- Kanye
Kanye
89,930 corpus weight
- kidnapping
kidnapping
89,929 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “kai” 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 | kai |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kaɪ̯/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #10,070 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “kai”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for kai is neighbouring look-alikes ("kI", "ky", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /kaɪ̯/. Frequency #10,070 among 1,236 “K” headwords. Gloss: "Food.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for kai, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "kI", "ky", "ko", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Māori kai. Doublet of makan (via Malay) in Malaysian and Singaporean English varieties. The correct English form is kai, spelled K-A-I.
Definition
- 1Food.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how kai appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Actually, I'm not sure I like these new hangis using the foil, it tends to stop the juices getting through to the stones and I reckon the hangi kai is drier to the palate.
Got to go now and get some kai.
Etymology
Borrowed from Māori kai. Doublet of makan (via Malay) in Malaysian and Singaporean English varieties.
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 "kai", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).