IBM
\aɪˈbiːˈɛm\
The verdict
“IBM” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #14,283 in French word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #14,283
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Société américaine d'informatique, connue du grand public pour avoir créé les premiers PC.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | IBM |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | \aɪˈbiːˈɛm\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #14,283 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “IBM” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for IBM is 3 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \aɪˈbiːˈɛm\. Corpus data places it at rank #14,283 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Société américaine d'informatique, connue du grand public pour avoir créé les premiers PC.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for IBM, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "il", "ii", "it", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No documented word history exists for this headword, 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 IBM, spelled I-B-M.
Definition
- 1Société américaine d'informatique, connue du grand public pour avoir créé les premiers PC.
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 "IBM"?
What does "IBM" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "IBM"?
How do you pronounce "IBM"?
What language does "IBM" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “IBM”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is I-B-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \aɪˈbiːˈɛm\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “il” - see the side-by-side comparison. IBM vs il
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.