maysvssouthWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“mays” and “south” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,064
“mays” frequency rank
#8,947
“south” frequency rank
53011
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mays south
Definition das Artepitheton für den Mais (Zea mays) Himmelsrichtung; Süden

Letter map: mays vs south

Shared letters muted; letters that set mays and south apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. mays runs 4 letters (CVVC) against south's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
mays
5 ch
south

Pair insight - mays / south

mays and south are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53011, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mays is recorded at frequency rank #44,064, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. south is at rank #8,947, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 53011, this pair ranks #1,074,587 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mays vs south

Shared letters: s. Private to "mays": amy. Private to "south": hotu.

"mays" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "south" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maysamys · masy · mayss · mayys · mmays · myas
  • southosuth · sotuh · souht · southh · soutth · ssouth · suoth

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mays" and "south" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "mays" or "south" show up more?
"south" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,947 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 "south". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "south" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,074,587 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mays" and "south" 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 #1,074,587 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