magesvsmovesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#45,499
“mages” frequency rank
#2,546
“moves” frequency rank
48045
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mages moves
Definition plural of mage plural of move

Where the eye mixes mages and moves

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. mages and moves follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
mages
5 ch
moves

Look-alike desk: mages vs moves

A purely visual mix-up. mages (/ˈmeɪ.d͡ʒɪz/) and moves (/muːvz/) 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 48045, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mages is recorded at frequency rank #45,499, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmeɪ.d͡ʒɪz/. moves is at rank #2,546, tagged as anoun, pronounced /muːvz/.

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 48045, this pair ranks #196,835 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mages vs moves

Shared letters: ems. Private to "mages": ag. Private to "moves": ov.

"mages" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "moves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mages ← amges · maegs · magess · magges · magse · mgaes · mmages
  • moves ← mmoves · moevs · movess · movse · movves · mvoes · omves

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mages" for "moves" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈmeɪ.d͡ʒɪz/ versus /muːvz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mages" or "moves"?
"moves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,546 in our English list, against #45,499 for "mages". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mages" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,835 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mages" and "moves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mages vs MGS". 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 #196,835 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