maimvsMawrWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: maim is a verb, Mawr is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maim” is a verb and “Mawr” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,918
“maim” frequency rank
#48,889
“Mawr” frequency rank
93807
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maim Mawr
Definition To wound seriously; to cause permanent loss of function of a limb or part of the body. A community (civil parish) in the City and County of Swansea, Wales.

Letter map: maim vs Mawr

Shared letters muted; letters that set maim and Mawr apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. maim (CVVC) and Mawr (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
maim
4 ch
Mawr

Grammar separator: maim vs Mawr

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maim is averb and Mawraname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 93807, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maim is recorded at frequency rank #44,918, classified as averb, pronounced /meɪm/. Mawr is at rank #48,889, tagged as aname.

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 93807, this pair ranks #1,693 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maim vs Mawr

Shared letters: am. Private to "maim": i. Private to "Mawr": rw.

"maim" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Mawr" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maim ← amim · maimm · mmaim
  • Mawr ← amwr · marw · mawrr · mawwr · mmawr · mwar

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maim" and "Mawr" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maim" is a verb and "Mawr" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maim" vs "Mawr" - which ranks higher?
"maim" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,918 in our English list, against #48,889 for "Mawr". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "maim" and "Mawr". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maim" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mawr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,693 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maim" and "Mawr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marl vs Mawr". 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 #1,693 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