Mary
/ˈmɛə.ɹi/
"mary" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Mary” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,730) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #1,730
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A female given name from Aramaic or Hebrew.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mary · Mary · English
Mary · rank #1,730 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,730
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH marketing
Nearest frequency peer: marketing (-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 neighbours of confusable “Mary”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Joe
Joe
98,274 corpus weight
- los
los
98,273 corpus weight
- marketing
marketing
98,272 corpus weight
- Mary
Mary
98,271 corpus weight
- materials
materials
98,270 corpus weight
- nor
nor
98,269 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “Mary” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | Mary |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɛə.ɹi/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,730 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “Mary”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for Mary is neighbouring look-alikes ("my", "Mr", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun pronounced /ˈmɛə.ɹi/. Frequency #1,730 among 4,057 “M” headwords. 7 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for Mary, with forms such as "maryy", "mayr", and "mmary". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "my", "Mr", "may", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English Marie, from Old French Marie, from Latin Maria, from Ancient Greek Μαρία (María), Μαριάμ (Mariám), from Aramaic מַרְיָם (maryām) or Biblical Hebrew מִרְיָם (miryām), of uncertain meaning (see the Hebrew entry for more). Doublet of Miriam… The correct English form is Mary, spelled M-A-R-Y.
Definition
- 1A female given name from Aramaic or Hebrew.
- 2The mother of Jesus; believed in Christianity and Islam to have been a virgin, and believed by most Christians to have been born herself without sin, to have been assumed into Heaven without death, and to act as a sympathetic intercessor for believers.
- 3Any of several other women in the New Testament, notably:
- 4Any of several other women in the New Testament, notably:
- 5Synonym of Maryam (“The 19th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an”)
- 6A term of address for a male homosexual.
- 7A male middle name, given in honour of the Virgin Mary.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Mary appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I have a passion for the name of Mary, For once it was a magic sound to me: And still it half calls up the realm of fairy Where I beheld what never was to be.
Mary, which is as common as a white violet, and like that has something indestructibly sweet and simple, and fit for all wear, high or low, suits the cottage or the palace, the garden or the field, the pretty and the ugly, the old and the young;
Etymology
From Middle English Marie, from Old French Marie, from Latin Maria, from Ancient Greek Μαρία (María), Μαριάμ (Mariám), from Aramaic מַרְיָם (maryām) or Biblical Hebrew מִרְיָם (miryām), of uncertain meaning (see the Hebrew entry for more). Doublet of Miriam, Marie, Maria, and Mariah.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- maryy
- mayr
- mmary
- mray
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Mary - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Mary", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).