mallevsManneTell them apart

Quick tell: malle is a verb, Manne is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“malle” is a verb and “Manne” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,674
“malle” frequency rank
#41,334
“Manne” frequency rank
73008
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malle Manne
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs mallen Variante für den Dativ Singular des Substantivs Mann

Where the eye mixes malle and Manne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. malle and Manne follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
malle
5 ch
Manne

Why the eye confuses malle with Manne

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: malle is [ˈmalə] while Manne is [ˈmanə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73008, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malle is recorded at frequency rank #31,674, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈmalə]. Manne is at rank #41,334, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmanə].

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 73008, this pair ranks #372,271 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malle vs Manne

Shared letters: aem. Private to "malle": l. Private to "Manne": n.

"malle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Manne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malle ← amlle · malel · mlale · mmalle
  • Manne ← amnne · mane · mmanne · mnane

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "malle" for "Manne" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malle" is a verb and "Manne" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "malle" or "Manne" show up more?
"malle" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,674 in our German list, against #41,334 for "Manne". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "malle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Manne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #372,271 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malle" and "Manne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Manne vs Matze". 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 #372,271 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