MaidvsMalsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Maid is a noun, Mals is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Maid” is a noun and “Mals” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,310
“Maid” frequency rank
#48,319
“Mals” frequency rank
83629
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Maid Mals
Definition junge, unverheiratete Frau eine Gemeinde in Südtirol

Letter map: Maid vs Mals

Shared letters muted; letters that set Maid and Mals apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Maid (CVVC) and Mals (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
Maid
4 ch
Mals

Role in the sentence - Maid and Mals

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Maid is anoun and Malsaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83629, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Maid is recorded at frequency rank #35,310, classified as anoun, pronounced [maɪ̯t]. Mals is at rank #48,319, tagged as aname, 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 83629, this pair ranks #136,717 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Maid vs Mals

Shared letters: am. Private to "Maid": di. Private to "Mals": ls.

"Maid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Mals" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Maid ← amid · madi · maidd · miad · mmaid
  • Mals ← amls · malls · malss · masl · mlas · mmals

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Maid" for "Mals" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Maid" is a noun and "Mals" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Maid" or "Mals" show up more?
"Maid" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,310 in our German list, against #48,319 for "Mals". 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 "Maid" and "Mals". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Maid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mals" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #136,717 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Maid" and "Mals" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mals 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 #136,717 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