she-bear

noun

"she-bear" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“she-bear” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A female bear (as opposed to a he-bear, male bear).

Corpus desk

Index EN-she-bear · she-bear · English

she-bear · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for she-bear
PropertyValue
Headwordshe-bear
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “she-bear” in English

she-bearsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

she-bear is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A female bear (as opposed to a he-bear, male bear).".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for she-bear, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sche bere; equivalent to she- + bear. The correct English form is she-bear, spelled S-H-E---B-E-A-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    A female bear (as opposed to a he-bear, male bear).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Elisha [...] was able to call upon two she-bears to come and eat up the children who had treated him irreverently[.]
  2. two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

Etymology

From Middle English sche bere; equivalent to she- + bear.

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 "she-bear"?
"she-bear" is spelled S-H-E---B-E-A-R.
What does "she-bear" mean?
As a noun, "she-bear" means: A female bear (as opposed to a he-bear, male bear).
What is the origin of the word "she-bear"?
From Middle English sche bere; equivalent to she- + bear. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list