mailedvsmailerConfusable pair

Quick tell: mailed is a verb, mailer is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mailed” is a verb and “mailer” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,991
“mailed” frequency rank
#31,248
“mailer” frequency rank
46239
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mailed mailer
Definition simple past and past participle of mail One who sends mail.

Letter map: mailed vs mailer

Shared letters muted; letters that set mailed and mailer apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. mailed and mailer follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
mailed
6 ch
mailer

Role in the sentence - mailed and mailer

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mailed is averb and maileranoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “mailed” becomes r in “mailer”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46239, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mailed is recorded at frequency rank #14,991, classified as averb, pronounced /meɪld/. mailer is at rank #31,248, tagged as anoun.

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 46239, this pair ranks #213,660 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mailed vs mailer

Shared letters: aeilm. Private to "mailed": d. Private to "mailer": r.

"mailed" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "mailer" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mailed ← amiled · maield · mailde · mailedd · mailled · malied · mialed · mmailed
  • mailer ← amiler · maielr · mailerr · mailler · mailre · malier · mialer · mmailer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mailed" and "mailer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mailed" is a verb and "mailer" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mailed" or "mailer"?
"mailed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,991 in our English list, against #31,248 for "mailer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "mailed" vs "mailer" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mailed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mailer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #213,660 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mailed" and "mailer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mailer vs miser". 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 #213,660 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