Initial-letter contraction

“many” in braille

Two cells for the whole word, however long it is — 4 letters here, a saving of 2 cells. “many” is the 172nd most common word in English.

Dots 4-5-6, then dots 1-3-4

Unicode ⠸⠍ — 4 letters in two cells

How to recognise it

Dots 4-5-6 then an m, sharing that second cell with “mother”. It is the commonest member of the dots 4-5-6 group after “their” and “world”, and the one you will meet first.

The second cell is the letter m

The second cell is the word's own first letter — the simpler half of this list. The other nine use a groupsign instead.

Learn it with its sister

“many” and “mother” are written with the same second cell. Only the prefix separates them, which means the hard work of telling them apart is done by one cell — and learning them as a set is far quicker than meeting them one at a time.

The m family
WordCellsPrefixCells saved
manydots 4-5-62 cells
motherdots 54 cells

Where it may appear inside a longer word

Anywhere of a word. UEB allows these inside a longer word only where the letters keep their meaning, which spelling cannot decide, so this site settled it by counting: every English word containing “many”, checked against the reference, split by where the letters sat.

Longer words that keep it

1 word among the 5,000 commonest in English is written with this contraction inside it. These are some of them, and every one was taken from this site's own output rather than chosen by hand.

“many” inside longer words
WordIn braille (Grade 2)Grade 1Grade 2
germany7 cells4 cells

The other 5 words under dots 4-5-6

A small group, so the prefix is already a strong clue.

cannot, had, spirit, their, world.

Check your own text

Type “many” into the translator with Grade 2 selected to see both cells, or take the full list.

“many” in braille as an image

Both cells as a picture: dots 4, 5 and 6, then dots 1, 3 and 4 — the whole word in two cells rather than 4 letters.

"many" in braille: two cells, the first with dots 4, 5 and 6 raised and the second with dots 1, 3 and 4.

Download the PNGCC BY 4.0.