Mephistopheles
/ˌmɛ.fɪˈstɒ.fɪ.liːz/
"mephistopheles" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Mephistopheles” is uncommon English (frequency #72,539 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #72,539
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The Devil to whom Faust sold his soul in the legend.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Mephistopheles |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˌmɛ.fɪˈstɒ.fɪ.liːz/ |
| Letters | 14 |
| Frequency rank | #72,539 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Mephistopheles” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
Mephistopheles is uncommon English at frequency #72,539 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as aproper noun, transcribed /ˌmɛ.fɪˈstɒ.fɪ.liːz/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The Devil to whom Faust sold his soul in the legend.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for Mephistopheles, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: Uncertain. The two-time occurrence of -ph- which is the Roman transliteration for Ancient Greek φ and of the termination -es which transliterates Ancient Greek -ης as in Aristoteles (Ἀριστοτέλης) along with the resemblance -phel-/-phil- bears to φιλεῖν (phi… The correct English form is Mephistopheles, spelled M-E-P-H-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-L-E-S.
Definition
- 1The Devil to whom Faust sold his soul in the legend.
Etymology
Uncertain. The two-time occurrence of -ph- which is the Roman transliteration for Ancient Greek φ and of the termination -es which transliterates Ancient Greek -ης as in Aristoteles (Ἀριστοτέλης) along with the resemblance -phel-/-phil- bears to φιλεῖν (phileîn, “to love”) has led many to believe that this must originally be a Greek compound word. Based on this assumption, the first two letters have been identified with μή (mḗ, “not”), while -phisto-/-phosto- has been interpreted as a corruption of φωτο- (phōto-), the compositional form of φῶς (phôs, “light”). The name would thus mean "not loving light" which seems fitting for a devil. However, there are two major problems with this theory. Firstly, phōto- is a common and clearly recognizable morpheme in Greek, making it an unlikely candidate for corruption. Secondly, μή (mḗ) is not typically used in Ancient Greek name formation. A more credible explanation has been proposed by Julius Goebel. He focuses on the alternative form Mephistophiel, which appears in the Praxis Cabulae nigrae Doctoris Johannis Fausti magi celeberrimi (1612). He interprets mephist- as a disguised form of megist-, transliterating μέγιστος (mégistos, “greatest”), an epithet of Hermes in the title of Ἑρμῆς Τρισμέγιστος (Hermês Trismégistos, “thrice-greatest Hermes”) who was the guardian-god of the magicians, astrologers and alchemists. The second part, -ophiel, is interpreted as the proper name Ophiel, composed of ὄφις (óphis, “serpent”) and -ήλ (-ḗl), which is the Hebrew אֵל (“god, deity”). The derivation of demon names in -el from non-Hebrew bases was common in magic-books of the 16th and 17th century; other examples include Kyniel from Greek κύων (kúōn, “dog”) and Ariel from ariēs (“ram”). Ophiel thus means "serpent-god" and refers to Hermes, who wields the κηρύκειον (kērúkeion), a staff entwined with two serpents. The appearance of Ophiel in the Wagnerbook and the Arbatel, where it is listed as another name for Mercury, supports this interpretation. Goebel therefore identifies Mephistopheles with Hermes Trismegistos and the planetary figure of Mercury. Wilhelm Roscher proposed a similar explanation for the name in his Ephialtes-monography about demons, where he states the name to be traceable back to *Μεγιστωφέλης (*Megistōphélēs), from μέγιστος (mégistos), as stated above, and ὠφελέω (ōpheléō, “to help”).https://archive.org/details/ephialteseinepa00roscgoog/page/n102/mode/1up
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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Using “Mephistopheles”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-E-P-H-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-L-E-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌmɛ.fɪˈstɒ.fɪ.liːz/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.