mayfly
"mayfly" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mayfly” is uncommon English (frequency #91,787 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #91,787
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of the many fragile insects of the order Ephemeroptera that develop in fresh water and live very briefly as winged adults.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mayfly · mayfly · English
mayfly · rank #91,787 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #91,787
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH Meaux
Nearest frequency peer: Meaux (+2 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.
Long-tail ranks near “mayfly”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- mathematic
mathematic
8,219 corpus weight
- mattering
mattering
8,218 corpus weight
- Matts
Matts
8,217 corpus weight
- mayfly
mayfly
8,214 corpus weight
- Meaux
Meaux
8,212 corpus weight
- menton
menton
8,210 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “mayfly” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mayfly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #91,787 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “mayfly” in English
Rare enough to double-check
mayfly is uncommon English at frequency #91,787 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
mayfly doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From May + fly. Compare Saterland Frisian Moaifljooge (“blowfly”). The correct English form is mayfly, spelled M-A-Y-F-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Any of the many fragile insects of the order Ephemeroptera that develop in fresh water and live very briefly as winged adults.
- 2Characterized by a short duration; short-lived.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mayfly appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
While some animals take months to reproduce, mayfly need just one perfect day.
[A] silver fish clooped a lazy arc downstream, not really caring that the mayfly were out of reach; […]
Etymology
From May + fly. Compare Saterland Frisian Moaifljooge (“blowfly”).
This word in other languages
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 "mayfly", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).