mai
/maɪ/determiner
mai is spelled M-A-I: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.4 times per million words in written English, the 14,307th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Mai, the name). As a determiner, mai means “Alternative form of my” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in mai?
| Letters | 3: M-A-I |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.4 times per million words; the 14,307th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is mai?
Mai appears 3.4 times per million words in written English, the 14,307th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Mai, the name.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce mai?
- /maɪ/
Mai 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)-Flame,_not_lame-mai.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with mai
Also written: my.
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with mai?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as mai.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: aim, mia, ami.
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).
What does mai mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
determiner
- 1
slangAlternative form of my.
mai waifu
noun
- 1
Initialism of Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare infection.
- 2
Initialism of machine augmented intelligence.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does mai come from?
Orthographic borrowing from the romanized form of Japanese マイ (mai), in turn a borrowing from English my, which it is treated as an alternate form of.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).