mem
/mɛm/
"mem" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mem” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #32,499) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #32,499
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The thirteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).
Corpus desk
Index EN-mem · mem · English
mem · rank #32,499 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #32,499
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH melton
Nearest frequency peer: melton (-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 “mem”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Meier
Meier
67,505 corpus weight
- melons
melons
67,504 corpus weight
- melton
melton
67,503 corpus weight
- mem
mem
67,502 corpus weight
- methylation
methylation
67,499 corpus weight
- Micky
Micky
67,498 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “mem” 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 | mem |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɛm/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #32,499 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “mem”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for mem is neighbouring look-alikes ("my", "Mr", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /mɛm/. Frequency #32,499 among 4,057 “M” headwords. Gloss: "The thirteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for mem, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "my", "Mr", "MS", 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 Phoenician 𐤌𐤌 (mm /mem/, “water”), from Proto-Semitic *maʾ- (“*maʾ-/*may-”). Doublet of mu. The correct English form is mem, spelled M-E-M.
Definition
- 1The thirteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).
Etymology
From Phoenician 𐤌𐤌 (mm /mem/, “water”), from Proto-Semitic *maʾ- (“*maʾ-/*may-”). Doublet of mu.
This word in other languages
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 "mem", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).