maasvsmadamTell them apart

Which to use

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

#46,597
“maas” frequency rank
#13,192
“madam” frequency rank
59789
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maas madam
Definition sour milk A polite form of address for a woman or lady.

Where the eye mixes maas and madam

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. maas runs 4 letters (CVVC) against madam's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
maas
5 ch
madam

Look-alike desk: maas vs madam

A purely visual mix-up. maas (/mɑːs/) and madam (/ˈmæd.əm/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59789, 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/. madam is at rank #13,192, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmæd.əm/.

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 59789, this pair ranks #104,103 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maas vs madam

Shared letters: am. Private to "maas": s. Private to "madam": d.

"maas" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "madam" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maas ← mmaas
  • madam ← amdam · maadm · madamm · maddam · madma · mdaam · mmadam

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maas" and "madam" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/mɑːs/ versus /ˈmæd.əm/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "maas" or "madam"?
"madam" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,192 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

Eye-level mix-up between "maas" and "madam" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "madam" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #104,103 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maas" and "madam" 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 #104,103 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