match
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "match", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "match" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "match" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
match is aEnglishnoun. It means: A competitive sporting event such as a boxing meet (commonly called a "bout"), a baseball game, or a cricket match. Pronounced /mæt͡ʃ/. It ranks #774 in English word frequency. Often confused with much and mate.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | match |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mæt͡ʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #774 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for match is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /mæt͡ʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #774 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for match, with forms such as "amtch", "macth", and "matcch". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "much", "mate", "matt", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English macche, mecche, from Old English mæċċa, ġemæċċa (“companion, mate, wife, one suited to another”), from Proto-West Germanic *makkjō, *gamakkjō (“partner, equal”), from Proto-Germanic *makô, from Proto-Indo-European *mag- (“to knead, work”… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is match, spelled M-A-T-C-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A competitive sporting event such as a boxing meet (commonly called a "bout"), a baseball game, or a cricket match.
- 2Any contest or trial of strength or skill, or to determine superiority.
- 3Someone with a measure of an attribute equaling or exceeding the object of comparison.
- 4A marriage.
- 5A candidate for matrimony; one to be gained in marriage.
- 6Suitability.
- 7Equivalence; a state of correspondence.
- 8Equality of conditions in contest or competition.
- 9A pair of items or entities with mutually suitable characteristics.
- 10An agreement or compact.
- 11A perforated board, block of plaster, hardened sand, etc., in which a pattern is partly embedded when a mould is made, for giving shape to the surfaces of separation between the parts of the mould.
Etymology
From Middle English macche, mecche, from Old English mæċċa, ġemæċċa (“companion, mate, wife, one suited to another”), from Proto-West Germanic *makkjō, *gamakkjō (“partner, equal”), from Proto-Germanic *makô, from Proto-Indo-European *mag- (“to knead, work”). Compare Danish mage (“mate”), Icelandic maki (“spouse”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amtch,macth,matcch,matchh,mathc,mattch,mmatch,mtach
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for match
Misspelling Variants of "match"
Frequency rank: #774 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: