maluvsmazeTell them apart

Quick tell: malu is a adverb, maze is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“malu” is an adverb and “maze” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,130
“malu” frequency rank
#44,065
“maze” frequency rank
90195
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malu maze
Definition erst, erst einmal Irrgarten oder ein Gewirr wie ein Irrgarten

Letter map: malu vs maze

Shared letters muted; letters that set malu and maze apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. malu and maze follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
malu
4 ch
maze

Grammar separator: malu vs maze

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malu is anadverb and mazeanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90195, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malu is recorded at frequency rank #46,130, classified as anadv, pronounced […]. maze is at rank #44,065, tagged as anoun, pronounced [meɪz].

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 90195, this pair ranks #49,379 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malu vs maze

Shared letters: am. Private to "malu": lu. Private to "maze": ez.

"malu" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "maze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malu ← amlu · mallu · mlau · mmalu
  • maze ← amze · maez · mazze · mmaze · mzae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "malu" for "maze" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malu" is an adverb and "maze" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "malu" vs "maze" - which ranks higher?
"maze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,065 in our German list, against #46,130 for "malu". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "malu" vs "maze" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,379 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malu" and "maze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malu vs puzzles". 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 #49,379 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