malicious
/məˈlɪʃəs/
"malicious" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“malicious” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,739 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #11,739
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Intending to do harm; characterized by spite and malice.
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 | malicious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /məˈlɪʃəs/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #11,739 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “malicious” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for malicious is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /məˈlɪʃəs/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,739 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Intending to do harm; characterized by spite and malice.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for malicious, with forms such as "amlicious", "mailcious", and "malciious". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "maliciously", 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 malicious, from Old French malicios, from Latin malitiōsus, from malitia (“malice”), from malus (“bad”). Displaced native Middle English ivelwilled and ivelwilly (“malicious”), related to Old English yfelwillende (literally “evil-willing… The correct English form is malicious, spelled M-A-L-I-C-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Intending to do harm; characterized by spite and malice.
Etymology
From Middle English malicious, from Old French malicios, from Latin malitiōsus, from malitia (“malice”), from malus (“bad”). Displaced native Middle English ivelwilled and ivelwilly (“malicious”), related to Old English yfelwillende (literally “evil-willing”). By surface analysis, malice + -ious.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amlicious,mailcious,malciious,maliccious,maliciosu,maliciouss,maliciuos,malicoius,maliicous,mallicious,mlaicious,mmalicious
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of malicious - 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 “malicious”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-L-I-C-I-O-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /məˈlɪʃəs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “maliciously” - see the side-by-side comparison. malicious vs maliciously
- 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.