bab

\bab\

/\bab\/ noun

The verdict

“bab” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #25,212) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#25,212
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Baba cool.

Corpus desk

Index FR-bab · bab · French

bab · rank #25,212 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #25,212
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH babel

Nearest frequency peer: babel (+1 rank slots)

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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « bab »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « bab » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

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).

bab vs by
33% similar
bab vs be
33% similar
bab vs BD
0% similar

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

Key facts for bab
PropertyValue
Headwordbab
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\bab\
Letters3
Frequency rank#25,212
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « bab »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.babse place ici:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « babel » (#25,213), « assassine » (#25,210), « bailli » (#25,214). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « bab » est au #25,212. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for bab is neighbouring look-alikes ("by", "be", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \bab\. Frequency #25,212 among 4,251 “B” headwords. Gloss: "Baba cool.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for bab, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "by", "be", "BD", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is bab, spelled B-A-B.

Definition

  1. 1
    Baba cool.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Qu'est-ce qu'un keupon, en quoi s'oppose-t-il au bab ? Qui sont les Béruriers Noirs ? A quoi sert un goumi ? Si vous donnez votre langue au chat, vous appartenez à l'espèce des environnants.
  2. C'était le rendez-vous des babs, des routards, des beatniks en partance pour les Indes. Les minibus se garaient en face.

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "bab"?
"bab" is spelled B-A-B. The IPA pronunciation is \bab\.
What does "bab" mean?
As a noun, "bab" means: Baba cool.
What words are commonly confused with "bab"?
"bab" is commonly confused with "by", "be", "BD". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "bab"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "bab" is \bab\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "bab" come from?
"bab" is a French 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 French words by spelling shape

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

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list