miau

[ˈmjaw]

/[ˈmjaw]/ noun

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

The verdict

“miau” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #39,339) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#39,339
frequency rank, Spanish
3,868
“M” headwords
4
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Imita el maullido (voz que emiten el gato y otros felinos pequeños).

Corpus desk

Index ES-miau · miau · Spanish

miau · rank #39,339 · 4 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #39,339
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 4 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,868
  • PHOTO-FINISH meridionales

Nearest frequency peer: meridionales (-1 rank slots)

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.

Vecinos de frecuencia del confusable “miau”

Pares de peso similar en el corpus, aparte de los confusables abajo

corpus weight

What this shows Las barras sitúan “miau” frente a los lemas españoles más cercanos por rango, no un reprint del escritorio de confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

miau vs mu
50% similar
miau vs mil
50% similar
miau vs mío
25% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for miau
PropertyValue
Headwordmiau
LanguageSpanish
Part of speechNoun
IPA[ˈmjaw]
Letters4
Frequency rank#39,339
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rango de corpus junto a confusables de “miau”

Esta escala corre desde el núcleo del español cotidiano (izquierda) hasta el rastro de formas rara vez usadas (derecha).miaucae aquí:

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

El eje es logarítmico: cada tick marca unas diez veces menos frecuencia. En la misma franja de rareza aparecen “meridionales” (#39,338), “midas” (#39,340), “mentía” (#39,337). Entre 3,868 lemas con “M”, “miau” va en #39,339. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for miau is neighbouring look-alikes ("mu", "mil", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced [ˈmjaw]. Frequency #39,339 among 3,868 “M” headwords. Gloss: "Imita el maullido (voz que emiten el gato y otros felinos pequeños).".

Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for miau, with forms such as "imau", "maiu", and "miua". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mu", "mil", "mío", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct Spanish form is miau, spelled M-I-A-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Imita el maullido (voz que emiten el gato y otros felinos pequeños).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. "Los guaus y los miaus de los perros y los gatos que ya reclaman comida, me recuerdan que debo finalizar este artículo y alimentarlos".
  2. "Estaba el señor don Gato, sentadito en su tejado, ma- rramiau-miau-miau-miau".

Synonyms

ñau

This word in other languages

meow(English)miaou(Français)miau(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • imau
  • maiu
  • miua
  • mmiau

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of miau - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

imau2maiu2miua2mmiau1
Edit distance from "miau"

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 Spanish corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "miau"?
"miau" is spelled M-I-A-U. The IPA pronunciation is [ˈmjaw].
What does "miau" mean?
As a noun, "miau" means: Imita el maullido (voz que emiten el gato y otros felinos pequeños).
What words are commonly confused with "miau"?
"miau" is commonly confused with "mu", "mil", "mío". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "miau"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "miau" is [ˈmjaw]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "miau" come from?
"miau" is a Spanish word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 Spanish words by spelling shape

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

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Spanish headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

lija#39,317paca#39,363lead#39,314dear#39,148

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list