MagnavsmalaConfusable pair

Quick tell: Magna is a noun, mala is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#26,513
“Magna” frequency rank
#45,440
“mala” frequency rank
71953
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Magna mala
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Magnum verkehrt, umgekehrt, gegenteilig, entgegengesetzt

Letter map: Magna vs mala

Shared letters muted; letters that set Magna and mala apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Magna runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against mala's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Magna
4 ch
mala

Part-of-speech tell for Magna / mala

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Magna is anoun and malaanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71953, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Magna is recorded at frequency rank #26,513, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈmaɡna]. mala is at rank #45,440, tagged as anadj.

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 71953, this pair ranks #402,009 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Magna vs mala

Shared letters: am. Private to "Magna": gn. Private to "mala": l.

"Magna" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "mala" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Magna ← amgna · magan · maggna · magnna · mgana · mmagna
  • mala ← maal · malla · mlaa · mmala

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Magna" for "mala" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Magna" is a noun and "mala" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Magna" or "mala" show up more?
"Magna" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,513 in our German list, against #45,440 for "mala". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Magna" and "mala". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Magna" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mala" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #402,009 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Magna" and "mala" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mala vs mora". 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 #402,009 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