malavsmaleWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mala is a adjective, male is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#45,440
“mala” frequency rank
#3,905
“male” frequency rank
49345
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mala male
Definition verkehrt, umgekehrt, gegenteilig, entgegengesetzt 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs malen

Letter map: mala vs male

Shared letters muted; letters that set mala and male apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mala and male follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
mala
4 ch
male

Role in the sentence - mala and male

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mala is anadjective and maleaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “mala” becomes e in “male”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49345, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mala is recorded at frequency rank #45,440, classified as anadj. male is at rank #3,905, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈmaːlə].

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 49345, this pair ranks #1,214,999 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mala vs male

Shared letters: alm. Private to "mala": -. Private to "male": e.

"mala" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "male" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mala ← maal · malla · mlaa · mmala
  • male ← amle · mael · mlae · mmale

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mala" and "male" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mala" is an adjective and "male" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "mala" or "male" show up more?
"male" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,905 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.

What to do next

Pair "mala" vs "male" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mala" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "male" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,214,999 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mala" and "male" 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 #1,214,999 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