MaevevsMageeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,246
“Maeve” frequency rank
#34,175
“Magee” frequency rank
77421
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Maeve Magee
Definition A female given name from Irish of mostly Irish usage. A surname.

Where the eye mixes Maeve and Magee

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Maeve (CVVCV) and Magee (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
Maeve
5 ch
Magee

Look-alike desk: Maeve vs Magee

A purely visual mix-up. Maeve (/meɪv/) and Magee (/məˈɡiː/) 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 77421, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Maeve is recorded at frequency rank #43,246, classified as aname, pronounced /meɪv/. Magee is at rank #34,175, tagged as aname, pronounced /məˈɡiː/.

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 77421, this pair ranks #27,311 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Maeve vs Magee

Shared letters: aem. Private to "Maeve": v. Private to "Magee": g.

"Maeve" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "Magee" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Maeve ← ameve · maeev · maevve · mavee · meave · mmaeve
  • Magee ← amgee · maege · maggee · mgaee · mmagee

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Maeve" and "Magee" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/meɪv/ versus /məˈɡiː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Maeve" vs "Magee" - which ranks higher?
"Magee" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,175 in our English list, against #43,246 for "Maeve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Maeve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Magee" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,311 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Maeve" and "Magee" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Maeve vs Marne". 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 #27,311 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