malevsmeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: male is a verb, me is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#3,905
“male” frequency rank
#1,980
“me” frequency rank
5885
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature male me
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs malen meines Erachtens

Letter map: male vs me

Shared letters muted; letters that set male and me apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
male
2 ch
me

Part-of-speech tell for male / me

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: male is averb and meanabbrev. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5885, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

male is recorded at frequency rank #3,905, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈmaːlə]. me is at rank #1,980, tagged as anabbrev.

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 5885, this pair ranks #1,993,402 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of male vs me

Shared letters: em. Private to "male": al. Private to "me": -.

"male" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "me" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maleamle · mael · mlae · mmale

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "male" and "me" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "male" is a verb and "me" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "male" or "me"?
"me" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,980 in our German list, against #3,905 for "male". 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 "male" and "me". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "male" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "me" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,993,402 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "male" and "me" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mailen vs male". 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 #1,993,402 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