Which to use
“Mahon” is a name and “mason” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #44,320
- “Mahon” frequency rank
- #5,709
- “mason” frequency rank
- 50029
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Mahon | mason |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A surname from Irish. | A bricklayer, one whose occupation is to build with stone or brick. |
Letter map: Mahon vs mason
Shared letters muted; letters that set Mahon and mason apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. Mahon and mason follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for Mahon / mason
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Mahon is aname and masonanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - h in “Mahon” becomes s in “mason”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50029, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Mahon is recorded at frequency rank #44,320, classified as aname. mason is at rank #5,709, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmeɪsən/.
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 50029, this pair ranks #178,044 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of Mahon vs mason
Shared letters: amno. Private to "Mahon": h. Private to "mason": s.
"Mahon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "mason" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Mahon" for "mason" ever safe?
Frequency check: "Mahon" vs "mason" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pair "Mahon" vs "mason" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "Mahon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mason" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #178,044 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Mahon" and "mason" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mahon vs malo". 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 #178,044 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.