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PlainSpell

mistake

[mɪˈsteɪk]verb, noun

mistake is spelled M-I-S-T-A-K-E. The wrong spelling people search most is mitake: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 135 of all searches for the word. Mistake is a verb meaning “To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another”.

How many letters and syllables are in mistake?

Letters7: M-I-S-T-A-K-E
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing47 times per million words; the 2,153rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, mitake, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell mistake?

Mistake is spelled M-I-S-T-A-K-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 136 of the searches for mistake in either form.

mistakethe right spelling2,700 searches a month
mitakea missing s20 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is mistake?

Mistake appears 47 times per million words in written English, the 2,153rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce mistake?

  • /mɪˈsteɪk/
  • US [mɪˈsteɪk]
  • British [mɪˈstɛjk]

Mistake has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-mistake.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of mistake

  • mistakes present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • mistaking participle, present
  • mistook past
  • mistaken participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does mistake mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.

    Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo misunderstand (someone).

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.

  4. 4

    obsoleterareTo take or choose wrongly.

noun

  1. 1

    An error.

    There were too many mistakes in the test that, unfortunately, made you fail.

  2. 2

    A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Mistake in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchméprendre, confondre (avec), faire erreur (to take one thing for another), se tromper (''(obsolete in English)'' to commit an…), faute, erreur (error – see also error)
Germanverwechseln (to take one thing for another), fehlen, sich versehen (''(obsolete in English)'' to commit an…), Fehler (error – see also error)
Portugueseconfundir (to take one thing for another), errar, equivocar-se, enganar-se (''(obsolete in English)'' to commit an…), erro, engano (error – see also error)
Spanishconfundir con, equivocar por (to take one thing for another), equivocarse (''(obsolete in English)'' to commit an…), error, equivocación, desatino (error – see also error)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does mistake come from?

From Middle English mistaken, from Old Norse mistaka (“to take in error, to miscarry”); equivalent to mis- + take. Cognate with Icelandic mistaka (“to mistake”), Swedish missta (“to mistake”) (before apocope misstaga). The noun, which replaced earlier mistaking, is derived from the verb. Compare Swedish misstag (“mistake”, noun), Faroese mistak (“mitake”, noun), Icelandic mistak (“mistake”, noun).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after mistake