mead

/miːd/

//miːd// noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"mead" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“mead” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #16,528) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#16,528
frequency rank, English
36,575
“M” headwords
4
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An alcoholic drink fermented from honey and water.

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

mead vs men
50% similar
mead vs met
50% similar
mead vs MUD
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for mead
PropertyValue
Headwordmead
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/miːd/
Letters4
Frequency rank#16,528
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “mead” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). mead lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for mead is neighbouring look-alikes ("men", "met", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /miːd/. Frequency #16,528 among 36,575 “M” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for mead, with forms such as "emad", "meadd", and "meda". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "men", "met", "MUD", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English mede, from Old English medu, from Proto-West Germanic *medu, from Proto-Germanic *meduz, from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu (“honey; honey wine”). Cognate with Ancient Greek μέθυ (méthu) (whence English methyl), Lithuanian medùs, Old Church… The correct English form is mead, spelled M-E-A-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    An alcoholic drink fermented from honey and water.
  2. 2
    A drink composed of syrup of sarsaparilla or other flavouring extract, and water, and sometimes charged with carbon dioxide.

Etymology

From Middle English mede, from Old English medu, from Proto-West Germanic *medu, from Proto-Germanic *meduz, from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu (“honey; honey wine”). Cognate with Ancient Greek μέθυ (méthu) (whence English methyl), Lithuanian medùs, Old Church Slavonic медъ (medŭ, “honey”), Persian می (mey), Sanskrit मधु (mádhu), Welsh medd, Finnish mesi, Chinese 蜜 (mì).

This word in other languages

aguamiel(Español)hydromel(Français)Met(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • emad
  • meadd
  • meda
  • mmead

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mead - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

emad2meadd1meda2mmead1
Edit distance from "mead"

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

How do you spell "mead"?
"mead" is spelled M-E-A-D. The IPA pronunciation is /miːd/.
What does "mead" mean?
As a noun, "mead" means: An alcoholic drink fermented from honey and water.
What words are commonly confused with "mead"?
"mead" is commonly confused with "men", "met", "MUD". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mead"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mead" is /miːd/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "mead"?
From Middle English mede, from Old English medu, from Proto-West Germanic *medu, from Proto-Germanic *meduz, from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu (“honey; honey wine”). Cognate with Ancient Greek μέθυ (méthu) (whence English methyl), Lithuanian medùs, ... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “mead”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is M-E-A-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as /miːd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
  • Don't mix it up with “men” - see the side-by-side comparison. mead vs men
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words

Words at a similar English frequency

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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list