evilvsmaidenTell them apart

Quick tell: evil is a adjective, maiden is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“evil” is an adjective and “maiden” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,620
“evil” frequency rank
#42,670
“maiden” frequency rank
58290
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature evil maiden
Definition böse die Maid, die Magd

Letter map: evil vs maiden

Shared letters muted; letters that set evil and maiden apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. evil runs 4 letters (VCVC) against maiden's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
evil
6 ch
maiden

Part-of-speech tell for evil / maiden

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: evil is anadjective and maidenanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58290, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

evil is recorded at frequency rank #15,620, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. maiden is at rank #42,670, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 58290, this pair ranks #868,508 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of evil vs maiden

Shared letters: ei. Private to "evil": lv. Private to "maiden": admn.

"evil" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "maiden" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • evileivl · evill · evli · evvil
  • maidenamiden · madien · maidden · maidenn · maidne · maiedn · miaden · mmaiden

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "evil" and "maiden" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "evil" is an adjective and "maiden" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "evil" or "maiden" show up more?
"evil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,620 in our German list, against #42,670 for "maiden". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "evil" vs "maiden" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "evil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maiden" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #868,508 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "evil" and "maiden" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maiden vs puzzles". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #868,508 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list