Which to use
“malice” is a noun and “malign” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,617
- “malice” frequency rank
- #47,740
- “malign” frequency rank
- 66357
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malice | malign |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune. | Evil or malignant in disposition, nature, intent or influence. |
Where the eye mixes malice and malign
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between malice and malign
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: malice is /ˈmælɪs/ while malign is /məˈlaɪn/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66357, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malice is recorded at frequency rank #18,617, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmælɪs/. malign is at rank #47,740, tagged as anadj, pronounced /məˈlaɪn/.
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 66357, this pair ranks #68,387 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of malice vs malign
Shared letters: ailm. Private to "malice": ce. Private to "malign": gn.
"malice" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "malign" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "malice" for "malign" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "malice" or "malign" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "malice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malign" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #68,387 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malice" and "malign" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malign vs Malin". 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 #68,387 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.