# Malayan vs Malays

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### Malayan
*noun · IPA /məˈleɪən/ · frequency rank #47,177*
A person of whatever ethnicity from the former Malaya or Peninsular Malaysia

### Malays
*noun · IPA /məˈleɪz/ · frequency rank #40,333*
plural of Malay

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/malayan-vs-malays