MailvsmartWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“Mail” and “mart” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,814
“Mail” frequency rank
#31,678
“mart” frequency rank
33492
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mail mart
Definition E-Mail dritter Monat im Kalenderjahr; März

Where the eye mixes Mail and mart

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Mail (CVVC) and mart (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
Mail
4 ch
mart

Look-alike desk: Mail vs mart

A purely visual mix-up. Mail ([mɛɪ̯l]) and mart ([mɑɾt]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33492, 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]. mart is at rank #31,678, tagged as anoun, pronounced [mɑɾt].

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 33492, this pair ranks #1,684,814 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Mail vs mart

Shared letters: am. Private to "Mail": il. Private to "mart": rt.

"Mail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mailamil · maill · mial · mmail
  • martamrt · marrt · martt · matr · mmart · mrat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Mail" for "mart" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([mɛɪ̯l] versus [mɑɾt]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Mail" or "mart"?
"Mail" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,814 in our German list, against #31,678 for "mart". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Mail" and "mart" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mart" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,684,814 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mail" and "mart" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mart 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 #1,684,814 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