malavsmeldWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#45,440
“mala” frequency rank
#28,760
“meld” frequency rank
74200
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mala meld
Definition verkehrt, umgekehrt, gegenteilig, entgegengesetzt 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs melden

Letter map: mala vs meld

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

4 ch
mala
4 ch
meld

Part-of-speech tell for mala / meld

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mala is anadjective and meldaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74200, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mala is recorded at frequency rank #45,440, classified as anadj. meld is at rank #28,760, tagged as averb, pronounced [mɛlt].

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 74200, this pair ranks #339,761 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mala vs meld

Shared letters: lm. Private to "mala": a. Private to "meld": de.

"mala" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "meld" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mala ← maal · malla · mlaa · mmala
  • meld ← emld · medl · meldd · melld · mled · mmeld

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mala" for "meld" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mala" is an adjective and "meld" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mala" vs "meld" - which ranks higher?
"meld" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,760 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 "mala" and "meld". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mala" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meld" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #339,761 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mala" and "meld" 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 #339,761 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