mare
/mɛɚ/noun
mare is spelled M-A-R-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.0 times per million words in written English, the 12,940th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, mare means “An adult female horse” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of mare is mares or maria.
How many letters and syllables are in mare?
| Letters | 4: M-A-R-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.0 times per million words; the 12,940th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is mare?
Mare appears 4.0 times per million words in written English, the 12,940th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce mare?
- UK /mɛə/
- US /mɛɚ/
- Australia /meː/
As a noun (“A type of evil spirit formerly thought to sit on the chest…”): /mɛə/, /mɛɚ/.
As a noun (“A large, dark plain, which may have the appearance of a…”): /ˈmɑɹ.eɪ/, /ˈmɛɚ.i/, /ˈmɑɹ.i/.
Mare has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-mare.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with mare
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with mare?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as mare from its last stressed vowel (/ɛəɹ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: ream, rame, mear.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of mare
- mares plural
- maria plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does mare mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An adult female horse.
- 2
IrelandUKderogatoryslangA foolish woman.
- 3
obsoleteA type of evil spirit formerly thought to sit on the chest of a sleeping person; also, the feeling of suffocation felt during sleep, attributed to such a spirit.
- 4
CommonwealthIrelandUKcolloquialA nightmare; a frustrating or terrible experience.
I'm having a complete mare today.
- 5
A large, dark plain, which may have the appearance of a sea, such as those on the Moon.
- 6
On Saturn's moon Titan, any of several lakes which are large expanses of what is thought to be liquid hydrocarbons.
Kraken Mare (a lake of liquid hydrocarbons on Titan which is slightly larger than the Caspian Sea)
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Mare in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | jument |
| German | Stute, Mähre, Pferdeweibchen , Mahr, Alb, Nachtalb |
| Portuguese | égua , mar |
| Spanish | yegua, jaca |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does mare come from?
From Middle English mare, meare, meir, mer, mere, meyre, mure, from Old English mīere (“female horse, mare”), from Proto-West Germanic *marhijā, from Proto-Germanic *marhijō (“female horse”), from *marhaz (“horse”), from Proto-Indo-European *márkos (“horse”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).