mist
/mɪst/
"mist" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mist” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,744 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #11,744
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Water or other liquid finely suspended in air. (Compare fog, haze.)
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 | mist |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɪst/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #11,744 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mist” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for mist is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /mɪst/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,744 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 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for mist, with forms such as "imst", "misst", and "mistt". 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, "MS", "MT", "Mrs", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is from Middle English mist, from Old English mist (“mist; darkness; dimness (of eyesight)”), from Proto-Germanic *mihstaz (“mist, fog”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃migʰstos, from the root *h₃meygʰ- (“cloud, fog, drizzle”). Cognate with Scots mist… The correct English form is mist, spelled M-I-S-T.
Definition
- 1Water or other liquid finely suspended in air. (Compare fog, haze.)
- 2A layer of fine droplets or particles.
- 3Anything that dims, darkens, or hinders vision.
Etymology
The noun is from Middle English mist, from Old English mist (“mist; darkness; dimness (of eyesight)”), from Proto-Germanic *mihstaz (“mist, fog”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃migʰstos, from the root *h₃meygʰ- (“cloud, fog, drizzle”). Cognate with Scots mist (“mist, fog”), West Frisian mist (“mist”), Dutch mist (“mist”), Swedish mist (“mist, fog”), Icelandic mistur (“mist”), West Frisian miegelje (“to drizzle”), Dutch dialectal miggelen, miegelen (“to drizzle”), Lithuanian miglà (“fog”), Sanskrit मेघ (megha, “cloud”), Russian мгла (mgla, “fog, haze”). The verb is from Middle English misten, from Old English mistian.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: imst,misst,mistt,mits,mmist,msit
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mist - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “mist”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-I-S-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /mɪst/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “MS” - see the side-by-side comparison. mist vs MS
- 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.