mongoose

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for mongoose is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɒŋ.ɡuːs/. Corpus data places it at rank #43,266 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for mongoose, with forms such as "mmongoose", "mnogoose", and "mognoose". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "Montrose", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: First attested in the 1690s. Borrowed from Portuguese manguço, from Marathi मुंगूस (muṅgūs), from Old Marathi 𑘦𑘳𑘽𑘐𑘳𑘭 (muṃgusa). Ultimately a Dravidian borrowing (compare Telugu ముంగిస (muṅgisa)), from Proto-Dravidian *mūnkūc- (“mongoose”). Spelling al… 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 mongoose, spelled M-O-N-G-O-O-S-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.