mass
/mæs/
"mass" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mass” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,428) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #1,428
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Matter, material.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mass · mass · English
mass · rank #1,428 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,428
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 36,575
- PHOTO-FINISH hall
Nearest frequency peer: hall (-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 “mass”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- executive
executive
98,576 corpus weight
- foot
foot
98,575 corpus weight
- hall
hall
98,574 corpus weight
- mass
mass
98,573 corpus weight
- meaning
meaning
98,572 corpus weight
- mission
mission
98,571 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “mass” 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 | mass |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mæs/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,428 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mass” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for mass is neighbouring look-alikes ("MS", "may", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /mæs/. Frequency #1,428 among 36,575 “M” headwords. 11 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for mass, with forms such as "amss", "mas", and "mmass". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "MS", "may", "Mrs", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: In late Middle English (circa 1400) as masse in the sense of "lump, quantity of matter", from Anglo-Norman masse, in Old French attested from the 11th century, via late Latin massa (“lump, dough”), from Ancient Greek μᾶζα (mâza, “barley-cake, lump (of dough… The correct English form is mass, spelled M-A-S-S.
Definition
- 1Matter, material.
- 2Matter, material.
- 3Matter, material.
- 4Matter, material.
- 5Matter, material.
- 6Matter, material.
- 7A large quantity; a sum.
- 8A large quantity; a sum.
- 9A large quantity; a sum.
- 10A large quantity; a sum.
- 11A large quantity; a sum.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mass appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
And if it were not for theſe Principles the Bodies of the Earth, Planets, Comets, Sun, and all things in them would grow cold and freeze, and become inactive Maſſes ; […].
[…] and because a deep mass of continual sea is slower stirred to rage.
Etymology
In late Middle English (circa 1400) as masse in the sense of "lump, quantity of matter", from Anglo-Norman masse, in Old French attested from the 11th century, via late Latin massa (“lump, dough”), from Ancient Greek μᾶζα (mâza, “barley-cake, lump (of dough)”). The Greek noun may be derived from the verb μάσσω (mássō, “to knead”), ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European *maǵ- (“to oil, knead”), although this is uncertain. Doublet of masa. The sense of "a large number or quantity" arises circa 1580. The scientific sense is from 1687 (as Latin massa) in the works of Isaac Newton, with the first English use (as mass) occurring in 1704.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- amss
- mas
- mmass
- msas
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mass - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 May 6, 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 "mass", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency 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.