MAD
[ɛmʔaːˈdeː]
The verdict
“MAD” is a moderately-common German word, ranked #12,532 in German word frequency and used as an abbreviation.
- #12,532
- frequency rank, German
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - militärischer Abschirmdienst
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 | MAD |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Abbreviation |
| IPA | [ɛmʔaːˈdeː] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #12,532 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “MAD” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for MAD is 3 letters long, classified as an abbreviation, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ɛmʔaːˈdeː]. Corpus data places it at rank #12,532 in overall German word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "militärischer Abschirmdienst".
No misspelling variants are generated for MAD in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mm", "me", "my", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct German form is MAD, spelled M-A-D.
Definition
- 1militärischer Abschirmdienst
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 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “MAD”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is M-A-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ɛmʔaːˈdeː] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “mm” - see the side-by-side comparison. MAD vs mm
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German 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.