midlife
/ˈmɪdlaɪf/
"midlife" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“midlife” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #36,668 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #36,668
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Occurring in the middle point of one's life, usually considered about 45.
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 | midlife |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈmɪdlaɪf/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #36,668 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “midlife” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for midlife is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɪdlaɪf/. Corpus data places it at rank #36,668 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Occurring in the middle point of one's life, usually considered about 45.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for midlife, with forms such as "imdlife", "mdilife", and "middlife". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "Millie", "midwife", "midline", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From mid- + life. The correct English form is midlife, spelled M-I-D-L-I-F-E.
Definition
- 1Occurring in the middle point of one's life, usually considered about 45.
Etymology
From mid- + life.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: imdlife,mdilife,middlife,midilfe,midlfie,midlief,midliffe,midllife,mildife,mmidlife
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of midlife - 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 “midlife”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-I-D-L-I-F-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmɪdlaɪf/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Millie” - see the side-by-side comparison. midlife vs Millie
- 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.