Which to use
“magus” and “maul” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,600
- “magus” frequency rank
- #32,913
- “maul” frequency rank
- 79513
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | magus | maul |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A magician; (derogatory) a conjurer or sorcerer, especially one who is a charlatan or trickster. | A heavy long-handled hammer, used for splitting logs by driving a wedge into them, or in combat. |
Where the eye mixes magus and maul
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. magus runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against maul's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between magus and maul
A purely visual mix-up. magus (/ˈmeɪɡəs/) and maul (/mɔːl/) 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 79513, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
magus is recorded at frequency rank #46,600, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmeɪɡəs/. maul is at rank #32,913, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɔːl/.
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 79513, this pair ranks #21,879 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of magus vs maul
Shared letters: amu. Private to "magus": gs. Private to "maul": l.
"magus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "maul" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "magus" for "maul" ever safe?
Frequency check: "magus" vs "maul" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "magus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maul" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #21,879 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "magus" and "maul" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magus 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 #21,879 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.