womb

/wuːm/

//wuːm// noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"womb" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“womb” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #12,533. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#12,533
frequency rank, English
1,759
“W” headwords
6
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In female mammals, the organ in which the young are conceived and grow until birth; the uterus.

Corpus desk

Index EN-womb · womb · English

womb · rank #12,533 · 6 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #12,533
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 6 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,759
  • PHOTO-FINISH winters

Nearest frequency peer: winters (-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.

Rank peers near misspelling magnet “womb”

Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword

corpus weight

What this shows “womb” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

womb vs won
50% similar
womb vs wow
50% similar
womb vs woo
50% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for womb
PropertyValue
Headwordwomb
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/wuːm/
Letters4
Frequency rank#12,533
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “womb”

This scale runs from the tiny cluster of words that carry ordinary speech (left) to the long tail of words almost nobody reaches for (right).womblands here:

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

The axis is logarithmic, with each marked tick roughly ten times rarer than the last. Same rarity band neighbours include “winters” (#12,532), “yogurt” (#12,534), “who'd” (#12,531). Among 1,759 “W” headwords, “womb” is #12,533. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 6 spelling variants around womb (IPA /wuːm/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #12,533 among 1,759 “W” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for womb, with forms such as "owmb", "wmob", and "wobm". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "won", "wow", "woo", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wombe, wambe, from Old English womb, wamb (“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”), from Proto-West Germanic *wambu, from Proto-Germanic *wambō (“belly, stomach, abdomen”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”), Dutch wam (“dewlap… The correct English form is womb, spelled W-O-M-B.

Definition

  1. 1
    In female mammals, the organ in which the young are conceived and grow until birth; the uterus.
  2. 2
    The abdomen or stomach.
  3. 3
    The stomach of a person or creature.
  4. 4
    A place where something is made or formed.
  5. 5
    Any cavity containing and enveloping anything.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. I danced myself right out the womb / Is it strange to dance so soon?
  2. And his hede, hym semed,was enamyled with asure, and his shuldyrs shone as the golde, and his wombe was lyke mayles of a merveylous hew[…].

Etymology

From Middle English wombe, wambe, from Old English womb, wamb (“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”), from Proto-West Germanic *wambu, from Proto-Germanic *wambō (“belly, stomach, abdomen”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”), Dutch wam (“dewlap of beef; belly of a fish”), German Wamme, Wampe (“paunch, belly”), Danish vom (“belly, paunch, rumen”), Swedish våmb (“belly, stomach, rumen”), Norwegian vom (“rumen”), Icelandic vömb (“belly, abdomen, stomach”), Old Welsh gumbelauc (“womb”), Breton gwamm (“woman, wife”), Sanskrit वपा (vapā́, “the skin or membrane lining the intestines or parts of the viscera, the caul or omentum”). Superseded non-native Middle English mater, matere (“womb”) and matris, matrice (“womb”) borrowed from Latin māter (“womb”) and Old French matrice (“womb”), respectively.

Synonyms

uterusmatrixbelly

This word in other languages

vientre(Español)utérus(Français)Gebärmutter(Deutsch)matriz(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • owmb
  • wmob
  • wobm
  • wombb
  • wommb
  • wwomb

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of womb - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

owmb2wmob2wobm2wombb1wommb1wwomb1
Edit distance from "womb"

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 "womb"?
"womb" is spelled W-O-M-B. The IPA pronunciation is /wuːm/.
What does "womb" mean?
As a noun, "womb" means: In female mammals, the organ in which the young are conceived and grow until birth; the uterus.
What words are commonly confused with "womb"?
"womb" is commonly confused with "won", "wow", "woo". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "womb"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "womb" is /wuːm/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "womb"?
From Middle English wombe, wambe, from Old English womb, wamb (“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”), from Proto-West Germanic *wambu, from Proto-Germanic *wambō (“belly, stomach, abdomen”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”), Dutch wa... 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.

Similar English words by spelling shape

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

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

warp#12,529damp#12,570rite#12,491puck#12,481

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).

Denis6 variantsEbola6 variantshath6 variantsmeth6 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list