might
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "might", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "might" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "might" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
might is aEnglishnoun. It means: Power, strength, force, or influence held by a person or group. Pronounced /maɪt/. It ranks #207 in English word frequency. Often confused with mit and mint.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | might |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /maɪt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #207 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for might is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /maɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #207 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for might, with forms such as "imght", "mgiht", and "migght". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "mit", "mint", "mist", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English myght, might (also maught, macht, maht), from Old English miht, mieht, meaht, mæht (“might, bodily strength, power, authority, ability, virtue, mighty work, miracle, angel”), from Proto-West Germanic *mahti, from Proto-Germanic *mahtiz, … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is might, spelled M-I-G-H-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Power, strength, force, or influence held by a person or group.
- 2Physical strength or force.
- 3The ability to do something.
Etymology
From Middle English myght, might (also maught, macht, maht), from Old English miht, mieht, meaht, mæht (“might, bodily strength, power, authority, ability, virtue, mighty work, miracle, angel”), from Proto-West Germanic *mahti, from Proto-Germanic *mahtiz, *mahtuz (“might, power”), from Proto-Indo-European *mógʰtis, *megʰ- (“to allow, be able, help”), corresponding to Germanic *maganą + *-þiz. Equivalent to may + -th. Cognate with Scots micht, maucht (“might”), North Frisian macht (“might, ability”), West Frisian macht (“might, ability”), Dutch macht (“might, power”), German Macht (“power, might”), Swedish makt (“might”), Norwegian makt (“power”), Icelandic máttur (“might”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌷𐍄𐍃 (mahts), and further to Russian мочь (močʹ, “power, might”) and мощь (moščʹ, “force, strength”), Ukrainian міч (mič) and міць (micʹ, “power”), Bulgarian мощ (mošt, “power, might”), Serbo-Croatian moć (“power”), Czech moc (“power”), Polish moc (“power”). See more at may.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: imght,mgiht,migght,mighht,mightt,migth,mihgt,mmight
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for might
Misspelling Variants of "might"
Frequency rank: #207 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: