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PlainSpell

maybe

/ˈmeɪ.bi/adverb, adjective, noun

maybe is spelled M-A-Y-B-E. The wrong spelling people search most is mabye: about 90 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 32 of all searches for the word. Maybe is an adverb meaning “Perhaps, possibly”.

How many letters and syllables are in maybe?

Letters5: M-A-Y-B-E
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing282 times per million words; the 338th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, mabye, about 90 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Pairs people search
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); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell maybe?

Maybe is spelled M-A-Y-B-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 32 of the searches for maybe in either form.

maybethe right spelling2,790 searches a month
mabyey and b swapped90 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is maybe?

Maybe appears 282 times per million words in written English, the 338th 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 maybe?

  • /ˈmeɪ.bi/
  • [ˈmeɪ̯.bi]
  • /mɛˈbiː/

Maybe has 2 syllables (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-uk-maybe.ogg, En-us-maybe.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with maybe

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

may be vs maybe2,400 G

Also written: may be (one word or two).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with maybe?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as maybe.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: beamy.

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 maybe

  • more maybe comparative
  • most maybe superlative
  • maybes plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does maybe mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adverb

  1. 1

    Perhaps, possibly.

    A small extra effort now can maybe save you much work later.

  2. 2

    Perhaps that is true (expressing no commitment to a decision or a neutral viewpoint to a statement).

    Okay. See you later, maybe. – Maybe I’ll see you later.

  3. 3

    UKCertainly.

    Maybe not the best idea.

adjective

  1. 1

    Possible; uncertain.

noun

  1. 1

    informalSomething that is possibly true.

  2. 2

    informalAn answer that shows neither agreement nor disagreement.

    The results of the poll were inconclusive. We got two yeses, three nos, and four maybes.

  3. 3

    informalA future event that may or may not happen.

    About your raise: it's a big maybe.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate maybe?

Wiktionary records 4 abbreviations of maybe: MB, mayB, mayb, mb.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Maybe in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpeut-être, peut-être que, il se peut que (indicating a lack of certainty), c'est possible (as a pro-sentence)
Germanvielleicht, möglicherweise, womöglich (indicating a lack of certainty), kann sein, gut möglich (as a pro-sentence)
Portuguesetalvez, porventura, quiçá, se calhar, quem sabe, possivelmente (indicating a lack of certainty)
Spanishquizá, quizás, tal vez, talvez, acaso, capaz que (indicating a lack of certainty)

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 maybe come from?

From an ellipsis of Middle English it may be, equivalent to may + be. Compare mayhap.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after maybe