McCleary
"mccleary" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“McCleary” is uncommon English (frequency #85,502 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #85,502
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A surname from Irish.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | McCleary |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #85,502 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “McCleary” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
McCleary is uncommon English at frequency #85,502 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as aproper noun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for McCleary in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: Anglicized form of Irish Mac an Chléirigh (“son of the cleric”), from cléireach (“clerk, cleric”). The correct English form is McCleary, spelled M-C-C-L-E-A-R-Y.
Definition
- 1A surname from Irish.
- 2A city in Grays Harbor County, Washington, United States.
Etymology
Anglicized form of Irish Mac an Chléirigh (“son of the cleric”), from cléireach (“clerk, cleric”).
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 “McCleary”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-C-C-L-E-A-R-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.