malic
/ˈmælɪk/
"malic" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“malic” is uncommon English (frequency #80,644 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,644
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pertaining to apples.
Corpus desk
Index EN-malic · malic · English
malic · rank #80,644 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #80,644
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH mannose
Nearest frequency peer: mannose (+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.
Long-tail ranks near “malic”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Lut
Lut
19,363 corpus weight
- LVMH
LVMH
19,362 corpus weight
- Madura
Madura
19,359 corpus weight
- malic
malic
19,357 corpus weight
- mannose
mannose
19,356 corpus weight
- mansplaining
mansplaining
19,354 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “malic” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | malic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈmælɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #80,644 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “malic” in English
Rare enough to double-check
malic is uncommon English at frequency #80,644 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈmælɪk/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for malic, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French malique, from Latin mālum. The correct English form is malic, spelled M-A-L-I-C.
Definition
- 1Pertaining to apples.
- 2Of or pertaining to malic acid or its derivatives.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how malic appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The fruit tastes very tart and has a green apple/malic flavor that is more pronounced than any berry type flavors.
Etymology
From French malique, from Latin mālum.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "malic", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).