mayor
/ˈmɛə/
"mayor" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mayor” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,396 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,396
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The chief executive of the municipal government of a city, borough, etc., formerly (historical) usually appointed as a caretaker by European royal courts but now usually appointed or elected locally.
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 | mayor |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɛə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,396 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mayor” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for mayor is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɛə/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,396 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for mayor, with forms such as "amyor", "maoyr", and "mayorr". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "MOR", "moor", "Mays", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s Proto-Indo-European *-yōs Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂yōs Proto-Italic *magjōs Latin maior Old French mairebor. Middle English maire English mayor From Middle English maire, from Old French maire (“head of a city or … The correct English form is mayor, spelled M-A-Y-O-R.
Definition
- 1The chief executive of the municipal government of a city, borough, etc., formerly (historical) usually appointed as a caretaker by European royal courts but now usually appointed or elected locally.
- 2Ellipsis of mayor of the palace, the royal stewards of the Frankish Empire.
- 3Synonym of mair, various former officials in the Kingdom of Scotland.
- 4A member of a city council.
- 5A high justice, an important judge.
- 6A largely ceremonial position in some municipal governments that presides over the city council while a contracted city manager holds actual executive power.
- 7A local VIP, a muckamuck or big shot reckoned to lead some local group.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s Proto-Indo-European *-yōs Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂yōs Proto-Italic *magjōs Latin maior Old French mairebor. Middle English maire English mayor From Middle English maire, from Old French maire (“head of a city or town government”), a substantivation of Old French maire (“greater”), from Latin maior (“bigger, greater, superior”), comparative of magnus (“big, great”). Doublet of major. Cognate with Old High German meior (“estate manager, steward, bailiff”) (modern German Meier), Middle Dutch meier (“administrator, steward, bailiff”) (modern Dutch meier). Displaced Old English burgealdor (“a ruler of a city, mayor, citizen”), burhġerēfa (“boroughreeve”), and portġerēfa (“portreeve”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amyor,maoyr,mayorr,mayro,mayyor,mmayor,myaor
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mayor - 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 “mayor”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-Y-O-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmɛə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “MOR” - see the side-by-side comparison. mayor vs MOR
- 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.