maysvswennsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#44,064
“mays” frequency rank
#5,445
“wenns” frequency rank
49509
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mays wenns
Definition das Artepitheton für den Mais (Zea mays) wenn es

Letter map: mays vs wenns

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

4 ch
mays
5 ch
wenns

Part-of-speech tell for mays / wenns

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mays is anoun and wennsanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49509, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mays is recorded at frequency rank #44,064, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. wenns is at rank #5,445, tagged as anabbrev, 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 49509, this pair ranks #1,208,850 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mays vs wenns

Shared letters: s. Private to "mays": amy. Private to "wenns": enw.

"mays" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "wenns" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maysamys · masy · mayss · mayys · mmays · myas
  • wennsewnns · wennss · wens · wensn · wnens · wwenns

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mays" and "wenns" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mays" is a noun and "wenns" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mays" vs "wenns" - which ranks higher?
"wenns" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,445 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.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mays" and "wenns".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wenns" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,208,850 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mays" and "wenns" 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 #1,208,850 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