ubac
/ˈuː.bæk/
"ubac" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ubac” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The shady side of a mountain; in the northern hemisphere, especially a north-facing slope.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ubac · ubac · English
ubac · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "U" 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ubac |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈuː.bæk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ubac” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ubac is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈuː.bæk/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The shady side of a mountain; in the northern hemisphere, especially a north-facing slope.".
ubac doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Occitan ubac, from Latin opācus. Doublet of opaque. The correct English form is ubac, spelled U-B-A-C.
Definition
- 1The shady side of a mountain; in the northern hemisphere, especially a north-facing slope.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ubac appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The distribution of barley is generally on the adret slope, the ubac seeming to be disregarded. A sunny slope is the most important natural factor in the cultivation of barley and wheat. Very rarely they are cultivated in ubac fields, but close investigation showed them to be of secondary adret nature. In this case seeds are sown a month earlier and mown…
Viticulure in an alpine (Savoie) or sub-alpine environment (like the Jura) is a precarious activity […] Exposure, by contrast, exaggerates or modifies the quantity of the altitudinal elements in terms of ubac (shady) versus adret (sunny) positions, wet and dry positions, or windy and protected positions, respectively. The advantages of adret slopes, which…
Etymology
Borrowed from Occitan ubac, from Latin opācus. Doublet of opaque.
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.