merit
/ˈmɛɹɪt/
"merit" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“merit” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,267 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,267
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A claim to commendation or a reward.
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 | merit |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɛɹɪt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,267 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “merit” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for merit is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɛɹɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,267 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for merit, with forms such as "emrit", "meirt", and "meritt". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "met", "mit", "MRI", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English merit, merite (“quality of person’s character or conduct deserving of reward or punishment; such reward or punishment; excellence, worthiness; benefit; right to be rewarded for spiritual service; retribution at doomsday; virtue through w… The correct English form is merit, spelled M-E-R-I-T.
Definition
- 1A claim to commendation or a reward.
- 2A mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence.
- 3Something deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.
- 4The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence and contributes to the person's growth towards enlightenment.
- 5Usually in the plural form the merits: the substantive rightness or wrongness of a legal argument, a lawsuit, etc., as opposed to technical matters such as the admissibility of evidence or points of legal procedure; (by extension) the overall good or bad quality, or rightness or wrongness, of some other thing.
- 6The quality or state of deserving retribution, whether reward or punishment.
Etymology
From Middle English merit, merite (“quality of person’s character or conduct deserving of reward or punishment; such reward or punishment; excellence, worthiness; benefit; right to be rewarded for spiritual service; retribution at doomsday; virtue through which Jesus Christ brings about salvation; virtue possessed by a holy person; power of a pagan deity”), from Anglo-Norman merit, merite, Old French merite (“moral worth, reward; merit”) (modern French mérite), from Latin meritum (“that which one deserves, deserts; benefit, reward, merit; service; kindness; importance, value, worth; blame, demerit, fault; grounds, reason”), neuter of meritus (“deserved, earned, obtained; due, proper, right; deserving, meritorious”), perfect passive participle of mereō (“to deserve, earn, obtain, merit; to earn a living”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mer- (“to allot, assign”). The English word is probably cognate with Ancient Greek μέρος (méros, “component, part; portion, share; destiny, fate, lot”) and cognate with Old Occitan merit.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: emrit,meirt,meritt,merrit,merti,mmerit,mreit
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of merit - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “merit”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-E-R-I-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmɛɹɪt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “met” - see the side-by-side comparison. merit vs met
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.