mice
/maɪs/verb, noun
mice is spelled M-I-C-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 12 times per million words in written English, the 6,138th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, mice means “To be distracted or inattentive (possibly alluding to a cat being distracted by a mouse)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in mice?
| Letters | 4: M-I-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 12 times per million words; the 6,138th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is mice?
Mice appears 12 times per million words in written English, the 6,138th 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 mice?
- /maɪs/
Mice has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-mice.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with mice?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as mice.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: emic.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of mice
- mices present, singular, he/she/it
- micing participle, present
- miced participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does mice mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To be distracted or inattentive (possibly alluding to a cat being distracted by a mouse).
noun
- 1
plural of mouse
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does mice come from?
From Middle English mys, mice, muis, mise, mis, from Old English mȳs (“mice”), from an umlauted form of Proto-Germanic *mūsiz (“mice”), nominative and vocative plural of Proto-Germanic *mūs (“mouse”). Compare Scots mice, mise, myse, myce (“mice”), West Frisian mûzen (“mice”), Dutch muizen (“mice”), German Mäuse (“mice”), Swedish möss (“mice”), Faroese mýs (“mice”), Icelandic mýs (“mice”). More at mouse.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).