mu
/mjuː/
"mu" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mu” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #11,427) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #11,427
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The 12th letter of the Modern Greek alphabet.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mu · mu · English
mu · rank #11,427 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #11,427
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH mourning
Nearest frequency peer: mourning (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “mu”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- monuments
monuments
88,577 corpus weight
- mourning
mourning
88,575 corpus weight
- mu
mu
88,574 corpus weight
- mustard
mustard
88,573 corpus weight
- negatively
negatively
88,572 corpus weight
- neighbour
neighbour
88,571 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “mu” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | mu |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mjuː/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #11,427 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mu” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for mu is neighbouring look-alikes ("my", "MW", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /mjuː/. Frequency #11,427 among 4,057 “M” headwords. Gloss: "The 12th letter of the Modern Greek alphabet.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for mu, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "my", "MW", "MV", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ancient Greek μῦ (mû), derived from Phoenician 𐤌𐤌 (mm /mem/, “water”). Doublet of mem. The correct English form is mu, spelled M-U.
Definition
- 1The 12th letter of the Modern Greek alphabet.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek μῦ (mû), derived from Phoenician 𐤌𐤌 (mm /mem/, “water”). Doublet of mem.
This word in other languages
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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What to do next
You've looked up "mu". Here's where to go from here.
- "mu" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "my". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #11,427 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "M" letter cohort. M–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.