parabola
/pəˈɹæbələ/
"parabola" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“parabola” is uncommon English (frequency #60,342 among 46,516 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #60,342
- frequency rank, English
- 46,516
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The conic section formed by the intersection of a cone with a plane parallel to a tangent plane to the cone; the locus of points equidistant from a fixed point (the focus) and line (the directrix).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | parabola |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pəˈɹæbələ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #60,342 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “parabola” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
parabola is uncommon English at frequency #60,342 among 46,516 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /pəˈɹæbələ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for parabola, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from New Latin parabola, from Ancient Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ), from παραβάλλω (parabállō, “I set side by side”), from παρά (pará, “beside”) + βάλλω (bállō, “I throw”). Doublet of parable, parole, and palaver. The correct English form is parabola, spelled P-A-R-A-B-O-L-A.
Definition
- 1The conic section formed by the intersection of a cone with a plane parallel to a tangent plane to the cone; the locus of points equidistant from a fixed point (the focus) and line (the directrix).
- 2Synonym of parable.
Etymology
Borrowed from New Latin parabola, from Ancient Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ), from παραβάλλω (parabállō, “I set side by side”), from παρά (pará, “beside”) + βάλλω (bállō, “I throw”). Doublet of parable, parole, and palaver.
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); 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 “parabola”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-A-R-A-B-O-L-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pəˈɹæbələ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.