mecvsmechaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“mec” and “mecha” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#42,770
“mec” frequency rank
#33,326
“mecha” frequency rank
76096
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mec mecha
Definition Clipping of meconium. A large armoured robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside.

Letter map: mec vs mecha

Shared letters muted; letters that set mec and mecha apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mec runs 3 letters (CVC) against mecha's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
mec
5 ch
mecha

Corpus notes: mec and mecha

mec and mecha are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mec” sits inside “mecha”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76096, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mec is recorded at frequency rank #42,770, classified as anoun. mecha is at rank #33,326, tagged as anoun.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 76096, this pair ranks #31,077 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mec vs mecha

Shared letters: cem. Private to "mec": -. Private to "mecha": ah.

"mec" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mecha" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mecha ← emcha · mceha · mecah · meccha · mechha · mehca · mmecha

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mec" for "mecha" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mec” sits inside “mecha”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "mec" vs "mecha" - which ranks higher?
"mecha" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,326 in our English list, against #42,770 for "mec". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mec" and "mecha".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mec" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mecha" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #31,077 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mec" and "mecha" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mec vs MMP". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #31,077 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list