map
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "map", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "map" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "map" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
map is aEnglishnoun. It means: A visual representation of an area, whether real or imaginary, showing the relative positions of places and other features. Pronounced /mæp/. It ranks #1,798 in English word frequency. Often confused with my and ME.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | map |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mæp/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #1,798 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for map is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /mæp/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,798 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for map in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "my", "ME", "Mr", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Shortening or back-formation of Middle English mappemounde, mapemounde (“world map”), from Old French mapamonde, from Medieval Latin mappa mundī, compound of Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”) and mundus (“world”). See mop for more on the first component. Double… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is map, spelled M-A-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A visual representation of an area, whether real or imaginary, showing the relative positions of places and other features.
- 2A graphical or logical representation of any structure or system, showing the positions of or relationships between its components.
- 3A function, especially a function satisfying a certain property (e.g. continuity, linearity, etc.; see Usage notes).
- 4Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genera Araschnia (especially, Araschnia levana) and Cyrestis, having map-like markings on the wings.
- 5The face.
- 6An imaginary or fictional area, often predefined and confined, where a game or a session thereof takes place.
- 7Synonym of associative array.
Etymology
Shortening or back-formation of Middle English mappemounde, mapemounde (“world map”), from Old French mapamonde, from Medieval Latin mappa mundī, compound of Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”) and mundus (“world”). See mop for more on the first component. Doublet of mop, nape, and nappe.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #1,798 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: