mop
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "mop", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "mop" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "mop" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
mop is aEnglishnoun. It means: An implement for washing floors or similar, made of a piece of cloth, or a collection of thrums, or coarse yarn, fastened to a handle. Pronounced /mɒp/. Often confused with my and Mr.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mop |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɒp/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #17,422 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for mop is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /mɒp/. Corpus data places it at rank #17,422 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for mop in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "my", "Mr", "MS", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English mappe (also as mappel), perhaps borrowed from Walloon mappe (“napkin”), from Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”). Believed to be from a Semitic source, variously claimed as Phoenician or Punic (the latter by Quintilian). Compare Modern Hebrew … 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 mop, spelled M-O-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An implement for washing floors or similar, made of a piece of cloth, or a collection of thrums, or coarse yarn, fastened to a handle.
- 2A wash with a mop; the act of mopping.
- 3A dense head of hair.
- 4An annual fair where servants were historically hired.
- 5A tassel worn in a buttonhole to indicate ones occupation in such a fair.
- 6A firearm particularly if it has a large magazine (compare broom, but still can be related to MP)
- 7Fellatio.
- 8A squeezable high-flow paint marker with an extra-wide felt or foam tip.
- 9A row of ropes dragged along the seabed for catching starfish.
- 10A drunkard.
Etymology
From Middle English mappe (also as mappel), perhaps borrowed from Walloon mappe (“napkin”), from Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”). Believed to be from a Semitic source, variously claimed as Phoenician or Punic (the latter by Quintilian). Compare Modern Hebrew מַפָּה (mapá, “a map; a cloth”) (shortened from מַנְפָּה (manpah, “fluttering banner, streaming cloth”)). Doublet of map, nape, and nappe.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #17,422 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: