maysvsmesTell them apart

Quick tell: mays is a noun, mes is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mays” is a noun and “mes” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,064
“mays” frequency rank
#31,176
“mes” frequency rank
75240
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mays mes
Definition das Artepitheton für den Mais (Zea mays) Plural Maskulinum des Pronomens mon

Letter map: mays vs mes

Shared letters muted; letters that set mays and mes apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
mays
3 ch
mes

Role in the sentence - mays and mes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mays is anoun and mesanunknown. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75240, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mays is recorded at frequency rank #44,064, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. mes is at rank #31,176, tagged as anunknown, pronounced [me].

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 75240, this pair ranks #312,958 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mays vs mes

Shared letters: ms. Private to "mays": ay. Private to "mes": e.

"mays" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mes" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maysamys · masy · mayss · mayys · mmays · myas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mays" and "mes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mays" is a noun and "mes" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "mays" or "mes" show up more?
"mes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,176 in our German list, against #44,064 for "mays". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "mays" and "mes". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #312,958 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mays" and "mes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mays 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 #312,958 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