maid
/meɪd/
"maid" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“maid” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #8,819) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #8,819
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 3
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - A girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden.
Corpus desk
Index EN-maid · maid · English
maid · rank #8,819 · 3 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #8,819
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 3 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH Lynn
Nearest frequency peer: Lynn (-1 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 “maid”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- logistics
logistics
91,185 corpus weight
- lowered
lowered
91,184 corpus weight
- Lynn
Lynn
91,183 corpus weight
- maid
maid
91,182 corpus weight
- Manuel
Manuel
91,180 corpus weight
- maple
maple
91,179 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “maid” 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 | maid |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /meɪd/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #8,819 |
| Misspellings tracked | 3 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “maid” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for maid is neighbouring look-alikes ("mi", "MD", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /meɪd/. Frequency #8,819 among 4,057 “M” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for maid, with forms such as "maidd", "miad", and "mmaid". 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, "mi", "MD", "may", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English mayde, maide, abbreviation of Middle English maiden from Old English mæġden (Old English mǣden). Ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *magaþ, from Proto-Germanic *magaþs (“girl, virgin”). The correct English form is maid, spelled M-A-I-D.
Definition
- 1A girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden.
- 2An adult or adolescent female servant or cleaner (short for maidservant). (In feudal times this could be anyone from a high-ranking assistant to a low-ranking cleaner.)
- 3A virgin, now female but originally one of either gender.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how maid appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.
You are betrothed both to a maid and man.
Etymology
From Middle English mayde, maide, abbreviation of Middle English maiden from Old English mæġden (Old English mǣden). Ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *magaþ, from Proto-Germanic *magaþs (“girl, virgin”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- maidd
- miad
- mmaid
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of maid - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "maid", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
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.