mime

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for mime is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /maɪm/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,885 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for mime, with forms such as "imme", "miem", and "mimme". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "MM", "mom", "mix", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Etymologically, the entry records: Possibly from Middle English *mime, from Old English mīma (“a buffoon, jester, mime”), from Latin mimus, from Ancient Greek μῖμος (mîmos, “imitator, actor”), but more likely re-borrowed in modern times from French mime (“mimic actor”), from the same source. The correct English form is mime, spelled M-I-M-E.