male
/meɪl/
"male" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“male” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,371 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #1,371
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Belonging to the sex which typically produces sperm, or to the gender which is typically associated with it.
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 | male |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /meɪl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,371 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “male” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for male is 4 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /meɪl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,371 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for male, with forms such as "amle", "mael", and "malle". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ME", "ML", "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: Etymology tree Latin mās Proto-Indo-European *-lós Proto-Italic *-elos Latin -ulus Latin -culus Latin masculus Vulgar Latin masclus Old French maslebor. Middle English male English male From Middle English male, borrowed from Old French malle, masle (Modern… The correct English form is male, spelled M-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1Belonging to the sex which typically produces sperm, or to the gender which is typically associated with it.
- 2Characteristic of this sex/gender. (Compare masculine, manly.)
- 3Tending to lead to or regulate the development of sexual characteristics typical of this sex.
- 4Masculine; of the masculine grammatical gender.
- 5Having the F factor; able to impart DNA into another bacterium which does not have the F factor (a female).
- 6Of instruments, tools, or connectors: designed to fit into or penetrate a female counterpart, as in a connector, pipe fitting or laboratory glassware.
Etymology
Etymology tree Latin mās Proto-Indo-European *-lós Proto-Italic *-elos Latin -ulus Latin -culus Latin masculus Vulgar Latin masclus Old French maslebor. Middle English male English male From Middle English male, borrowed from Old French malle, masle (Modern French mâle), from Latin masculus (“masculine, a male”), diminutive of mās (“male, masculine”). Doublet of macho. Displaced native Old English wǣpned (“male”, literally “weaponed”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amle,mael,malle,mlae,mmale
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of male - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “male”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /meɪl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ME” - see the side-by-side comparison. male vs ME
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.