mass
/mæs/
"mass" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mass” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,428 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,428
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Matter, material.
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
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for mass is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /mæs/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,428 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “mass”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /mæs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “MS” - see the side-by-side comparison. mass vs MS
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.