oxbow lake
"oxbow-lake" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“oxbow lake” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A crescent-shaped lake formed near a flat-valleyed river when one of its meanders becomes pinched off and isolated.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | oxbow lake |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “oxbow lake” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
oxbow lake is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A crescent-shaped lake formed near a flat-valleyed river when one of its meanders becomes pinched off and isolated.".
oxbow lake doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is oxbow lake, spelled O-X-B-O-W- -L-A-K-E.
Definition
- 1A crescent-shaped lake formed near a flat-valleyed river when one of its meanders becomes pinched off and isolated.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "oxbow lake"?
What does "oxbow lake" mean?
What language does "oxbow lake" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “oxbow lake”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-X-B-O-W- -L-A-K-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.