makevsmemeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#87
“make” frequency rank
#8,170
“meme” frequency rank
8257
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature make meme
Definition To create. Any unit of (originally cultural) information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes.

Where the eye mixes make and meme

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
make
4 ch
meme

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: make is /meɪk/ while meme is /miːm/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8257, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

make is recorded at frequency rank #87, classified as averb, pronounced /meɪk/. meme is at rank #8,170, tagged as anoun, pronounced /miːm/.

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 8257, this pair ranks #503,388 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of make vs meme

Shared letters: em. Private to "make": ak. Private to "meme": -.

"make" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "meme" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • makeamke · maek · makke · mkae · mmake
  • memeemme · meem · memme · mmee · mmeme

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "make" and "meme" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "make" is a verb and "meme" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "make" or "meme"?
"make" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #87 in our English list, against #8,170 for "meme". 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