mell
/mɛl/
"mell" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mell” is uncommon English (frequency #64,533 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #64,533
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To say (something); to speak, to tell.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mell · mell · English
mell · rank #64,533 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #64,533
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH megaton
Nearest frequency peer: megaton (-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 “mell”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Meacham
Meacham
35,471 corpus weight
- medio
medio
35,470 corpus weight
- megaton
megaton
35,469 corpus weight
- mell
mell
35,468 corpus weight
- mescaline
mescaline
35,466 corpus weight
- Metis
Metis
35,465 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “mell” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mell |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /mɛl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #64,533 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “mell” in English
Rare enough to double-check
mell is uncommon English at frequency #64,533 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /mɛl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To say (something); to speak, to tell.".
mell has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English melen, mælen, from Old English mǣlan (“to speak, talk”), from mǣl (“speech, talk, conversation; dispute, contest, battle”) and māl (“suit, case, action, terms, agreement, covenanted pay”), both from Proto-Germanic *mahlą (“meeting, congr… The correct English form is mell, spelled M-E-L-L.
Definition
- 1To say (something); to speak, to tell.
Etymology
From Middle English melen, mælen, from Old English mǣlan (“to speak, talk”), from mǣl (“speech, talk, conversation; dispute, contest, battle”) and māl (“suit, case, action, terms, agreement, covenanted pay”), both from Proto-Germanic *mahlą (“meeting, congress, speech”), alteration of *maþlą (“meeting, congress, speech”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“to meet, encounter”). Cognate with Scots mele (“to speak, converse, tell”), Danish mæle (“to speak, utter”), Icelandic mæla (“to speak, say”), Old High German mahalōn (“to charge, accuse, proscecute”), German vermählen (“to wed, marry”). More at blackmail.
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 "mell", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).