maidvsmindWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#8,819
“maid” frequency rank
#378
“mind” frequency rank
9197
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maid mind
Definition A girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden. The capability for rational thought.

Where the eye mixes maid and mind

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
maid
4 ch
mind

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. maid (/meɪd/) and mind (/maɪnd/) 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 9197, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maid is recorded at frequency rank #8,819, classified as anoun, pronounced /meɪd/. mind is at rank #378, tagged as anoun, pronounced /maɪnd/.

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 9197, this pair ranks #498,622 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maid vs mind

Shared letters: dim. Private to "maid": a. Private to "mind": n.

"maid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mind" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maidmaidd · miad · mmaid
  • mindimnd · midn · mindd · minnd · mmind · mnid

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maid" and "mind" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/meɪd/ versus /maɪnd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "maid" or "mind"?
"mind" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #378 in our English list, against #8,819 for "maid". 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