legume
/ˈlɛɡ.juːm/
"legume" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“legume” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #47,727 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #47,727
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The fruit or seed of leguminous plants (as peas or beans) used for food.
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 | legume |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈlɛɡ.juːm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #47,727 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “legume” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for legume is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈlɛɡ.juːm/. Corpus data places it at rank #47,727 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for legume, with forms such as "elgume", "leggume", and "legmue". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "lemme", "legumes", "league", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French légume, from Latin legūmen (“bean”). Doublet of legumen. The correct English form is legume, spelled L-E-G-U-M-E.
Definition
- 1The fruit or seed of leguminous plants (as peas or beans) used for food.
- 2Any of a large family (Fabaceae, syn. Leguminosae) of dicotyledonous herbs, shrubs, and trees having fruits that are legumes or loments, bearing nodules on the roots that contain nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and including important food and forage plants (as peas, beans, or clovers).
- 3A pod dehiscent into two pieces or valves, and having the seed attached at one suture, as that of the pea.
Etymology
Borrowed from French légume, from Latin legūmen (“bean”). Doublet of legumen.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: elgume,leggume,legmue,leguem,legumme,leugme,lgeume,llegume
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of legume - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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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Using “legume”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-E-G-U-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈlɛɡ.juːm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “lemme” - see the side-by-side comparison. legume vs lemme
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.