micawber
/mɪˈkɒbər/noun
micawber is spelled M-I-C-A-W-B-E-R: 8 letters. It appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 122,704th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, micawber means “Alternative letter-case form of Micawber; a person of modest income or background who remains optimistic that their situation will improve” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of micawber is micawbers.
How many letters and syllables are in micawber?
| Letters | 8: M-I-C-A-W-B-E-R |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 17 million words; the 122,704th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is micawber?
Micawber appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 122,704th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce micawber?
- US /mɪˈkɒbər/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Micawber.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of micawber
- micawbers plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does micawber mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Alternative letter-case form of Micawber; a person of modest income or background who remains optimistic that their situation will improve.
noun
- 1
A person who is poor but eternally optimistic, believing that "something will turn up", like the fictional character Wilkins Micawber in the 1850 Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield.
verb
- 1
To be optimistic that "something will turn up", in the style of Wilkins Micawber.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does micawber come from?
A name likely coined by Charles Dickens, evidently reminiscent of common Irish, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic surnames starting with Mc-, Mac-, both from Old Irish macc (“son, child”) (see more there). For the second particle, compare names like Aubrey; similar surnames like M(a)cAubrey are attested around Dickens' time and thus Micawber may represent a dialectal variation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).