menu
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "menu", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "menu" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "menu" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
menu is aEnglishnoun. It means: The details of the food to be served at a banquet; a bill of fare. Pronounced /ˈmɛn.juː/. It ranks #4,613 in English word frequency. Often confused with MN and mu.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | menu |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɛn.juː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,613 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for menu is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɛn.juː/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,613 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for menu, with forms such as "emnu", "mennu", and "meun". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "MN", "mu", "met", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French menu. Doublet of menudo and minute. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is menu, spelled M-E-N-U, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The details of the food to be served at a banquet; a bill of fare.
- 2A list containing the food and beverages served at a restaurant, café, or bar. Menus may be printed on paper sheets provided to customers, put on a large poster or display board inside the establishment, displayed outside the restaurant, or digital.
- 3The food or drinks that are available in a restaurant, café, or bar.
- 4A list from which the user may select an operation to be performed, often done with a keyboard, mouse, or controller under a graphical user interface.
- 5A list or agenda.
Etymology
Borrowed from French menu. Doublet of menudo and minute.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: emnu,mennu,meun,mmenu,mneu
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for menu
Misspelling Variants of "menu"
Frequency rank: #4,613 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: