Melayu

noun

"melayu" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“Melayu” is uncommon English (frequency #83,503 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#83,503
frequency rank, English
4,057
“M” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The Malay ethnic group.

Corpus desk

Index EN-melayu · Melayu · English

Melayu · rank #83,503 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #83,503
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,057
  • PHOTO-FINISH Mehmed

Nearest frequency peer: Mehmed (-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.

Long-tail ranks near “Melayu”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “Melayu” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for Melayu
PropertyValue
HeadwordMelayu
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters6
Frequency rank#83,503
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “Melayu” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).Melayufalls in this rarity band:

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

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “Mehmed” (#83,502), “medicinally” (#83,499), “menudo” (#83,507). Among 4,057 “M” headwords, “Melayu” is #83,503. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

Melayu is uncommon English at frequency #83,503 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The Malay ethnic group.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for Melayu, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Malay Melayu. The correct English form is Melayu, spelled M-E-L-A-Y-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    The Malay ethnic group.

Etymology

Borrowed from Malay Melayu.

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 "Melayu"?
"Melayu" is spelled M-E-L-A-Y-U.
What does "Melayu" mean?
As a noun, "Melayu" means: The Malay ethnic group.
What is the origin of the word "Melayu"?
Borrowed from Malay Melayu. 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.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Melayu", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list