mtDNA
"mtdna" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mtDNA” is uncommon English (frequency #54,954 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,954
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Abbreviation of mitochondrial DNA.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mtDNA |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #54,954 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mtDNA” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
mtDNA is uncommon English at frequency #54,954 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Abbreviation of mitochondrial DNA.".
mtDNA doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is mtDNA, spelled M-T-D-N-A.
Definition
- 1Abbreviation of mitochondrial DNA.
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 “mtDNA”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-T-D-N-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.