madevsmaskWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#126
“made” frequency rank
#4,251
“mask” frequency rank
4377
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature made mask
Definition A grub or maggot. A cover, or partial cover, for the face, used for disguise or protection.

Where the eye mixes made and mask

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

4 ch
made
4 ch
mask

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. made (/meːd/) and mask (/mɑːsk/) 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 4377, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

made is recorded at frequency rank #126, classified as anoun, pronounced /meːd/. mask is at rank #4,251, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɑːsk/.

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 4377, this pair ranks #519,128 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of made vs mask

Shared letters: am. Private to "made": de. Private to "mask": ks.

"made" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mask" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • madeamde · madde · maed · mdae · mmade
  • maskamsk · maks · maskk · massk · mmask · msak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "made" and "mask" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/meːd/ versus /mɑːsk/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "made" or "mask"?
"made" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #126 in our English list, against #4,251 for "mask". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list