pavan

noun

"pavan" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“pavan” is uncommon English (frequency #92,984 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#92,984
frequency rank, English
4,417
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative form of pavane (“musical style and dance”).

Corpus desk

Index EN-pavan · pavan · English

pavan · rank #92,984 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #92,984
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,417
  • PHOTO-FINISH paunch

Nearest frequency peer: paunch (-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.

Long-tail ranks near “pavan”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “pavan” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for pavan
PropertyValue
Headwordpavan
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters5
Frequency rank#92,984
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “pavan” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).pavanfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Rare peers in the same band: “paunch” (#92,983), “Paxil” (#92,985), “peckish” (#92,987). Among 4,417 “P” headwords, “pavan” is #92,984. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

pavan is uncommon English at frequency #92,984 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative form of pavane (“musical style and dance”).".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for pavan, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is pavan, spelled P-A-V-A-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Alternative form of pavane (“musical style and dance”).

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how pavan appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. And he tasted in the language of memory ambered wines, dying fallings of sweet airs, the proud pavan: and saw with the eyes of memory kind gentlewomen in Covent Garden wooing from their balconies with sucking mouths and the pox fouled wenches of the taverns and young wives that, gaily yielding to their ravishers, clipped and clipped again.

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

How do you spell "pavan"?
"pavan" is spelled P-A-V-A-N.
What does "pavan" mean?
As a noun, "pavan" means: Alternative form of pavane (“musical style and dance”).
What language does "pavan" come from?
"pavan" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pavan", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list