mar
/mɑː(ɹ)/
"mar" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mar” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #5,233) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #5,233
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mar · mar · English
mar · rank #5,233 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,233
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH Louisiana
Nearest frequency peer: Louisiana (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “mar”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Jennifer
Jennifer
94,771 corpus weight
- lit
lit
94,770 corpus weight
- Louisiana
Louisiana
94,769 corpus weight
- mar
mar
94,768 corpus weight
- Marie
Marie
94,767 corpus weight
- Mississippi
Mississippi
94,765 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “mar” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | mar |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /mɑː(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,233 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mar” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for mar is neighbouring look-alikes ("my", "ME", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced /mɑː(ɹ)/. Frequency #5,233 among 4,057 “M” headwords. Gloss: "To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.".
Zero misspellings are on record for mar in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "my", "ME", "Mr", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English merren, from Old English mierran (“to mar, disturb, confuse; scatter, squander, waste; upset, hinder, obstruct; err”), from Proto-Germanic *marzijaną (“to disturb, hinder”), from Proto-Indo-European *mers- (“to annoy, disturb, … The correct English form is mar, spelled M-A-R.
Definition
- 1To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mar appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…] and putteth ether many a good mā by ignorance in ieopardy of his life, or marreth good medicines to the great diſhoneſtie both of the Phiſician and of Goddes worthy creatures, the herbes and medecines:
Prospero: […]huſh, and be mute / Or elſe our ſpell is mar'd.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English merren, from Old English mierran (“to mar, disturb, confuse; scatter, squander, waste; upset, hinder, obstruct; err”), from Proto-Germanic *marzijaną (“to disturb, hinder”), from Proto-Indo-European *mers- (“to annoy, disturb, neglect, forget, ignore”). Cognate with Scots mer, mar (“to obstruct, impede, spoil, ruin”), Dutch marren (“to push along, delay, hinder”), dialectal German merren (“to entangle”), Icelandic merja (“to bruise, crush”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐍂𐌶𐌾𐌰𐌽 (marzjan, “to annoy, bother, disturb, offend”), Lithuanian miršti (“to forget, lose, become oblivious, die”), Armenian մոռանալ (moṙanal, “to forget, fail”), Sanskrit मृष् (mṛṣ, “forget, neglect”).
This word in other languages
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mar", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "mar". Here's where to go from here.
- "mar" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "my". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #5,233 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "M" letter cohort. M–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.