maysvswingsConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#44,064
“mays” frequency rank
#13,742
“wings” frequency rank
57806
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mays wings
Definition das Artepitheton für den Mais (Zea mays) 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs wing

Letter map: mays vs wings

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

4 ch
mays
5 ch
wings

Part-of-speech tell for mays / wings

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mays is anoun and wingsaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57806, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mays is recorded at frequency rank #44,064, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. wings is at rank #13,742, tagged as averb, 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 57806, this pair ranks #887,055 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mays vs wings

Shared letters: s. Private to "mays": amy. Private to "wings": ginw.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mays ← amys · masy · mayss · mayys · mmays · myas
  • wings ← iwngs · wigns · winggs · wingss · winngs · winsg · wnigs · wwings

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mays" for "wings" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mays" is a noun and "wings" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "mays" or "wings" show up more?
"wings" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,742 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

Pair "mays" vs "wings" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wings" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #887,055 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mays" and "wings" 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 #887,055 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