maasvsmaceTell them apart

Which to use

“maas” and “mace” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#46,597
“maas” frequency rank
#18,879
“mace” frequency rank
65476
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maas mace
Definition sour milk A heavy fighting club.

Where the eye mixes maas and mace

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
maas
4 ch
mace

Visual trap between maas and mace

A purely visual mix-up. maas (/mɑːs/) and mace (/meɪs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65476, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maas is recorded at frequency rank #46,597, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɑːs/. mace is at rank #18,879, tagged as anoun, pronounced /meɪs/.

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 65476, this pair ranks #72,555 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maas vs mace

Shared letters: am. Private to "maas": s. Private to "mace": ce.

"maas" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maasmmaas
  • maceamce · macce · maec · mcae · mmace

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maas" and "mace" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/mɑːs/ versus /meɪs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "maas" vs "mace" - which ranks higher?
"mace" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,879 in our English list, against #46,597 for "maas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mace" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,555 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maas" and "mace" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maas vs MPAA". 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 #72,555 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list