English homophones

maize/Mays/maze

"maize" is a noun; "Mays" is a name - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "maize" arrives as a noun, while "Mays" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

Shared stem "ma" then splits - "maize" (5 letters) vs "Mays" (4).
Shared stem "ma" then splits - "maize" (5 letters) vs "maze" (4).
Shared stem "ma" then splits - "Mays" (4 letters) vs "maze" (4).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across maize, Mays, maze: am. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

maize
5 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVCV
Inventory aeimz · private eiz
Mays
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory amsy · private sy
maze
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory aemz · private ez

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "maize" when you mean: Corn; a type of grain of the species Zea mays.
Write "Mays" when you mean: plural of May
Write "maze" when you mean: A labyrinth; a puzzle consisting of a complicated network of paths or passages, the aim of which is to find one's way through.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

maize ← amize · maiez · maizze · mazie · miaze · mmaize
Mays ← amys · masy · mayss · mayys · mmays · myas
maze ← amze · maez · mazze · mmaze · mzae

Each spelling

maize

noun · /meɪz/ · #18,616 frequency

Corn; a type of grain of the species Zea mays.

Mays

name · /meɪz/ · #27,925 frequency

plural of May

maze

noun · /ˈmeɪz/ · #12,102 frequency

A labyrinth; a puzzle consisting of a complicated network of paths or passages, the aim of which is to find one's way through.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (maize, Mays, maze). Here's where to go from here.

"maze" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #12,102 in English). Full entry
Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: mayor · mare · mair. Nearby cluster
Grammar often disambiguates this cluster, match the meaning to the part of speech before picking a spelling. Pick by meaning

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.