Malley
"malley" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Malley” is uncommon English (frequency #70,866 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #70,866
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A surname from Irish.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Malley |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #70,866 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Malley” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
Malley is uncommon English at frequency #70,866 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as aproper noun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A surname from Irish.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for Malley, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: * As an Irish surname, shortened form of O'Malley. * As an English surname of Norman origin, from several places in France named Mailly, from Latin Mallius, a nomen. * As a Carpathian Rusyn surname, Americanized from Mlej; see Malay. Similar Slavic variants… The correct English form is Malley, spelled M-A-L-L-E-Y.
Definition
- 1A surname from Irish.
Etymology
* As an Irish surname, shortened form of O'Malley. * As an English surname of Norman origin, from several places in France named Mailly, from Latin Mallius, a nomen. * As a Carpathian Rusyn surname, Americanized from Mlej; see Malay. Similar Slavic variants exist such as Polish Mały, Czech and Slovak Malý, Slovene Malý; see Maly. * Also as a Slovene and Slovak surname, from Malej; see Maley.
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 “Malley”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-L-L-E-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this 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.