Macau
/məˈkaʊ/
"macau" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Macau” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #20,159. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #20,159
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - A city, special administrative region, and peninsula in China, west of Hong Kong.
Corpus desk
Index EN-macau · Macau · English
Macau · rank #20,159 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #20,159
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH Maynard
Nearest frequency peer: Maynard (+3 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “Macau”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- lawless
lawless
79,850 corpus weight
- Macau
Macau
79,842 corpus weight
- Maynard
Maynard
79,839 corpus weight
- mayoral
mayoral
79,838 corpus weight
- medley
medley
79,837 corpus weight
- MH
MH
79,834 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “Macau” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | Macau |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /məˈkaʊ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #20,159 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Macau” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around Macau (IPA /məˈkaʊ/), aproper noun. Corpus frequency is #20,159 among 4,057 “M” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for Macau, with forms such as "amcau", "maacu", and "maccau". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Mau", "MCU", "mama", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Portuguese Macau, from Hokkien. See Portuguese Macau for more info. The correct English form is Macau, spelled M-A-C-A-U.
Definition
- 1A city, special administrative region, and peninsula in China, west of Hong Kong.
- 2a former Portuguese colony in modern southern China between 1557 and 1999.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Macau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Open 24 hours a day and seven days a week, Macau's 35 casinos entertain around 30 million visitors each year, making over 30 billion euros in revenue. These are figures which make the US gambling city of Las Vegas look like a desert village.[…] Macau is the only place in China where gambling is officially permitted. Until the end of 1999, the peninsula wa…
At the height of the Covid wave, some mainland residents ventured across the border to the Chinese territory of Macau to find foreign-made mRNA vaccines.
Etymology
Borrowed from Portuguese Macau, from Hokkien. See Portuguese Macau for more info.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- amcau
- maacu
- maccau
- macua
- mcaau
- mmacau
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Macau - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "Macau"?
What does "Macau" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "Macau"?
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What is the origin of the word "Macau"?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Macau", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).
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.