mycoplasma

noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"mycoplasma" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“mycoplasma” is uncommon English (frequency #80,692 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#80,692
frequency rank, English
4,057
“M” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any infectious bacterium of the genus Mycoplasma, often specifically Mycoplasma pneumoniae

Corpus desk

Index EN-mycoplasma · mycoplasma · English

mycoplasma · rank #80,692 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #80,692
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,057
  • PHOTO-FINISH Mycenae

Nearest frequency peer: Mycenae (-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.

Long-tail ranks near “mycoplasma”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “mycoplasma” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for mycoplasma
PropertyValue
Headwordmycoplasma
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters10
Frequency rank#80,692
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “mycoplasma” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).mycoplasmafalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Rare peers in the same band: “Mycenae” (#80,691), “Myerson” (#80,693), “multivariable” (#80,689). Among 4,057 “M” headwords, “mycoplasma” is #80,692. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

mycoplasma is uncommon English at frequency #80,692 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any infectious bacterium of the genus Mycoplasma, often specifically Mycoplasma pneumoniae".

mycoplasma doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Etymologically, the entry records: From translingual Mycoplasma, from Latin, from Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs, “fungus”) + πλάσμα (plásma, “-shaped”). Equivalent to myco- + plasma. The correct English form is mycoplasma, spelled M-Y-C-O-P-L-A-S-M-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any infectious bacterium of the genus Mycoplasma, often specifically Mycoplasma pneumoniae

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how mycoplasma appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Officials are investigating whether the illness was caused by mycoplasma, a common bacteria known as walking pneumonia.
  2. It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.

Etymology

From translingual Mycoplasma, from Latin, from Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs, “fungus”) + πλάσμα (plásma, “-shaped”). Equivalent to myco- + plasma.

This word in other languages

Mykoplasmen(Deutsch)

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

How do you spell "mycoplasma"?
"mycoplasma" is spelled M-Y-C-O-P-L-A-S-M-A.
What does "mycoplasma" mean?
As a noun, "mycoplasma" means: Any infectious bacterium of the genus Mycoplasma, often specifically Mycoplasma pneumoniae
What is the origin of the word "mycoplasma"?
From translingual Mycoplasma, from Latin, from Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs, “fungus”) + πλάσμα (plásma, “-shaped”). Equivalent to myco- + plasma. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mycoplasma", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

nitpicking#80,707metacarpal#80,670obsequious#80,719parenchyma#80,743

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list