Which to use
“male” is an adjective and “males” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,371
- “male” frequency rank
- #5,061
- “males” frequency rank
- 6432
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | male | males |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Belonging to the sex which typically produces sperm, or to the gender which is typically associated with it. | plural of male |
Where the eye mixes male and males
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: male is /meɪl/ while males is /meɪlz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “male” sits inside “males”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6432, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
male is recorded at frequency rank #1,371, classified as anadj, pronounced /meɪl/. males is at rank #5,061, tagged as anoun, pronounced /meɪlz/.
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 6432, this pair ranks #511,448 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of male vs males
Shared letters: aelm. Private to "male": -. Private to "males": s.
"male" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "males" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC