midge
/mɪd͡ʒ/
"midge" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“midge” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #38,967 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #38,967
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of various small two-winged flies, for example, from the family Chironomidae or non-biting midges, the family Chaoboridae or phantom midges, and the family Ceratopogonidae or biting midges, all...
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 | midge |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɪd͡ʒ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #38,967 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “midge” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for midge is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /mɪd͡ʒ/. Corpus data places it at rank #38,967 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 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 midge, with forms such as "imdge", "mdige", and "middge". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mig", "Mie", "mine", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English mydge, migge, from Old English mygg, myċġ (“midge, gnat”), from Proto-West Germanic *muggju, from Proto-Germanic *mugjō, from Proto-Indo-European *mū- (“fly, midge”), *mu-, *mew-. The dialectal sense of "short person" was originally figu… The correct English form is midge, spelled M-I-D-G-E.
Definition
- 1Any of various small two-winged flies, for example, from the family Chironomidae or non-biting midges, the family Chaoboridae or phantom midges, and the family Ceratopogonidae or biting midges, all belonging to the order Diptera.
- 2A small, short or insignificant person.
- 3Any bait or lure designed to resemble a midge.
Etymology
From Middle English mydge, migge, from Old English mygg, myċġ (“midge, gnat”), from Proto-West Germanic *muggju, from Proto-Germanic *mugjō, from Proto-Indo-European *mū- (“fly, midge”), *mu-, *mew-. The dialectal sense of "short person" was originally figurative, and gave rise to midget (“short person”) via the diminutive suffix -et, which has since become part of standard English with that meaning; this has caused midge to undergo rebracketing as a clipping of midget. Cognates * Scots mige (“midge”) * Saterland Frisian Määge (“gnat, mosquito”) * West Frisian mich (“fly, mosquito”) * West Flemish meezje (“midge, mosquito”) * Dutch mug (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * German Low German Mügge (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * German Mücke (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * Swedish mygg, mygga (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * Icelandic mý (“midge, gnat, fly”) The Proto-Indo-European root was also the source of * Latin musca * Ancient Greek μυῖα (muîa) * Russian му́ха (múxa) * Latvian muša * Czech muchnička * Albanian mizë * Armenian մուն (mun)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: imdge,mdige,middge,mideg,midgge,migde,mmidge
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of midge - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “midge”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-I-D-G-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /mɪd͡ʒ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “mig” - see the side-by-side comparison. midge vs mig
- 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.