MailvsmalaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#1,814
“Mail” frequency rank
#45,440
“mala” frequency rank
47254
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mail mala
Definition E-Mail verkehrt, umgekehrt, gegenteilig, entgegengesetzt

Letter map: Mail vs mala

Shared letters muted; letters that set Mail and mala apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
Mail
4 ch
mala

Role in the sentence - Mail and mala

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Mail is anoun and malaanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47254, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mail is recorded at frequency rank #1,814, classified as anoun, pronounced [mɛɪ̯l]. 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 47254, this pair ranks #1,290,833 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Mail vs mala

Shared letters: alm. Private to "Mail": i. Private to "mala": -.

"Mail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mala" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mailamil · maill · mial · mmail
  • malamaal · malla · mlaa · mmala

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Mail" for "mala" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mail" is a noun and "mala" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Mail" vs "mala" - which ranks higher?
"Mail" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,814 in our German list, against #45,440 for "mala". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Mail" and "mala".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mail" 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 #1,290,833 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mail" 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 #1,290,833 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