Which to use
“maize” and “malice” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,616
- “maize” frequency rank
- #18,617
- “malice” frequency rank
- 37233
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maize | malice |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Corn; a type of grain of the species Zea mays. | Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune. |
Where the eye mixes maize and malice
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: maize vs malice
A purely visual mix-up. maize (/meɪz/) and malice (/ˈmælɪs/) 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 37233, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maize is recorded at frequency rank #18,616, classified as anoun, pronounced /meɪz/. malice is at rank #18,617, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmælɪs/.
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 37233, this pair ranks #296,285 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maize vs malice
Shared letters: aeim. Private to "maize": z. Private to "malice": cl.
"maize" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "malice" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maize" and "malice" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "maize" or "malice" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "maize" and "malice" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "maize" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malice" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #296,285 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maize" and "malice" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maize vs Marne". 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 #296,285 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.