kun
"kun" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“kun” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #20,404) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #20,404
- frequency rank, English
- 1,236
- “K” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In the Japanese language, the pronunciation, or reading, of a kanji character as a native Japanese word that means what the character represents, contrasted with on.
Corpus desk
Index EN-kun · kun · English
kun · rank #20,404 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #20,404
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,236
- PHOTO-FINISH Kristin
Nearest frequency peer: Kristin (-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 “kun”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Khalid
Khalid
79,600 corpus weight
- Kristin
Kristin
79,598 corpus weight
- kun
kun
79,597 corpus weight
- Lacey
Lacey
79,596 corpus weight
- Lao
Lao
79,595 corpus weight
- latent
latent
79,594 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “kun” 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 | kun |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #20,404 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “kun”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for kun is neighbouring look-alikes ("ky", "kyu", …), not just typos; it is anoun. Frequency #20,404 among 1,236 “K” headwords. Gloss: "In the Japanese language, the pronunciation, or reading, of a kanji character as a native Japanese word that means what the character represents, contrasted with on.".
Zero misspellings are on record for kun in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ky", "kyu", "Kuo", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Japanese 訓読み (kun'yomi), literally "meaning reading" (i.e. pronunciation based on meaning). The correct English form is kun, spelled K-U-N.
Definition
- 1In the Japanese language, the pronunciation, or reading, of a kanji character as a native Japanese word that means what the character represents, contrasted with on.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how kun appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Most kanji have two kinds of reading, called "on" and "kun".
Etymology
From Japanese 訓読み (kun'yomi), literally "meaning reading" (i.e. pronunciation based on meaning).
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 "kun", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).