Minos
/ˈmaɪnɒs/
"minos" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Minos” is an uncommon English word, ranked #60,285 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #60,285
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The mythological first king of Crete, a son of Zeus by Europa, who imprisoned the Minotaur in a labyrinth and after death was made a judge of the dead in Hades; a putative corresponding historical ...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Minos |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈmaɪnɒs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #60,285 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Minos” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Minos is 5 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmaɪnɒs/. Corpus data places it at rank #60,285 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The mythological first king of Crete, a son of Zeus by Europa, who imprisoned the Minotaur in a labyrinth and after death was made a judge of the dead in Hades; a putative corresponding historical ...".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for Minos, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ancient Greek Μῑ́νως (Mī́nōs). The correct English form is Minos, spelled M-I-N-O-S.
Definition
- 1The mythological first king of Crete, a son of Zeus by Europa, who imprisoned the Minotaur in a labyrinth and after death was made a judge of the dead in Hades; a putative corresponding historical person.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek Μῑ́νως (Mī́nōs).
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 “Minos”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-I-N-O-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmaɪnɒs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.