mayday
\mɛ.dɛ\
The verdict
“mayday” is uncommon French (frequency #63,916 among 5,038 “M” headwords), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,916
- frequency rank, French
- 5,038
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Message prononcé au début d'une communication radio et indiquant un besoin d'assistance urgent avec mise en danger de vie humaine. Au secours, à l’aide, SOS.
Corpus desk
Index FR-mayday · mayday · French
mayday · rank #63,916 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #63,916
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,038
- PHOTO-FINISH maximisation
Nearest frequency peer: maximisation (-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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « mayday »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- matrimoniaux
matrimoniaux
36,088 corpus weight
- Mattia
Mattia
36,087 corpus weight
- maximisation
maximisation
36,086 corpus weight
- mayday
mayday
36,085 corpus weight
- Maïa
Maïa
36,084 corpus weight
- medico
medico
36,082 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « mayday » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mayday |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \mɛ.dɛ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #63,916 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « mayday » en français
Rare enough to double-check
mayday is uncommon French at frequency #63,916 among 5,038 “M” headwords, classed as aninterjection, transcribed \mɛ.dɛ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Message prononcé au début d'une communication radio et indiquant un besoin d'assistance urgent avec mise en danger de vie humaine. Au secours, à l’aide, SOS.".
No misspelling variants are generated for mayday in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is mayday, spelled M-A-Y-D-A-Y.
Definition
- 1Message prononcé au début d'une communication radio et indiquant un besoin d'assistance urgent avec mise en danger de vie humaine. Au secours, à l’aide, SOS.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how mayday appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il se bouche le nez, comme s’il parlait dans un micro. « Mayday ! Mayday ! » C'est comme… quand on lance un SOS, ça ! Quand le bateau, il fait naufrage ! On fait : Le nez bouché. « Mayday ! Mayday ! » Au public. Tididi, Tadada, Tididi, je vous fais le SOS du bateau perdu dans la mer d’Aille ! Tididi, Tadada, Tididi ! Il fait la houle avec son diabolo. C'e…
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mayday", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).