mela
"mela" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mela” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #49,487) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #49,487
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A Hindu religious festival.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mela · mela · English
mela · rank #49,487 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #49,487
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH meiosis
Nearest frequency peer: meiosis (-1 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.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “mela”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- maxillary
maxillary
50,518 corpus weight
- McCluskey
McCluskey
50,517 corpus weight
- McMullen
McMullen
50,516 corpus weight
- meiosis
meiosis
50,515 corpus weight
- mela
mela
50,514 corpus weight
- mensch
mensch
50,513 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “mela” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | mela |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #49,487 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “mela”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for mela is neighbouring look-alikes ("ML", "men", …), not just typos; it is anoun. Frequency #49,487 among 4,057 “M” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for mela, with forms such as "emla", "mella", and "mlea". 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, "ML", "men", "met", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Urdu میلہ (mela)/Hindi मेला (melā), from Sanskrit मेलक (melaka). The correct English form is mela, spelled M-E-L-A.
Definition
- 1A Hindu religious festival.
- 2A South Asian fair.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mela appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Kalua was a man of unusual height and powerful build: in any fair, festival or mela, he could always be spotted towering above the crowd—even the jugglers on stilts were usually not so tall as he.
Every year there was a mela in the small village where Jutimala lived and Khitish would send three workers to set up a stall there.
Etymology
From Urdu میلہ (mela)/Hindi मेला (melā), from Sanskrit मेलक (melaka).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- emla
- mella
- mlea
- mmela
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mela - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mela", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).