obs
"obs" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“obs” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #34,614) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #34,614
- frequency rank, English
- 1,431
- “O” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Police observation.
Corpus desk
Index EN-obs · obs · English
obs · rank #34,614 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #34,614
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,431
- PHOTO-FINISH nutcracker
Nearest frequency peer: nutcracker (-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 neighbourhood for “obs”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- notepad
notepad
65,390 corpus weight
- numerically
numerically
65,389 corpus weight
- nutcracker
nutcracker
65,388 corpus weight
- obs
obs
65,387 corpus weight
- Odisha
Odisha
65,386 corpus weight
- OLED
OLED
65,384 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “obs” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | obs |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #34,614 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “obs” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for obs is neighbouring look-alikes ("of", "on", …), not just typos; it is anoun. Frequency #34,614 among 1,431 “O” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for obs, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "of", "on", "or", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, 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 obs, spelled O-B-S.
Definition
- 1Police observation.
- 2An observation hut.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how obs appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But I now knew I was under obs by the Gardai as well as by GMP.
Had you under obs for three weeks.
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 "obs", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "obs". Here's where to go from here.
- "obs" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "of". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #34,614 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "O" letter cohort. O–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.