mac
/mæk/noun
mac is spelled M-A-C: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 28 times per million words in written English, the 3,288th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, mac means “Clipping of mackintosh (“a raincoat”)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of mac is macs.
How many letters and syllables are in mac?
| Letters | 3: M-A-C |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 28 times per million words; the 3,288th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is mac?
Mac appears 28 times per million words in written English, the 3,288th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce mac?
- /mæk/
Mac has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-mac.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Mac.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with mac
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: mack (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: macaroni.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with mac?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as mac.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: cam.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of mac
- macs plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does mac mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Clipping of mackintosh (“a raincoat”).
- 2
AustraliaCanadaUKUSderogatoryoffensiveslangA person of Scottish descent (used in driving culture to denigrate someone for poor/slow/amateurish driving responses).
- 3
CanadaUSslangClipping of macaroni.
Is there any mac and cheese left?
noun
- 1
USinformalUsed to address a man whose name is unknown.
Have you got a light, Mac?
- 2
A Macintosh computer (made by Apple Inc.).
noun
- 1
Initialism of maximum allowable concentration, the maximum concentration of a pollutant which is considered harmless to healthy adults during their working hours, assuming they breathe uncontaminated air at all other times.
- 2
Initialism of mandatory access control.
- 3
Initialism of media access control: the portion of Ethernet, Wi-Fi 802.11 wireless, Bluetooth, FDDI, ATM, and Fibre Channel networks that controls which hardware devices have access to the media over which signals are sent.
- 4
Initialism of mean aerodynamic chord.
- 5
Initialism of mid-air collision.
- 6
Initialism of message authentication code.
- 7
Initialism of merchant aircraft carrier.
- 8
Initialism of magnetic accelerator cannon.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Mac in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | Zé |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does mac come from?
Clipping of mackintosh.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).