manusvsmaruWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“manus” and “maru” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#33,726
“manus” frequency rank
#33,730
“maru” frequency rank
67456
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manus maru
Definition A hand, as the part of the fore limb below the forearm in a human, or the corresponding part in other vertebrates. A Japanese ship, especially a merchant ship.

Where the eye mixes manus and maru

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
manus
4 ch
maru

Look-alike desk: manus vs maru

A purely visual mix-up. manus (/ˈmeɪnəs/) and maru (/ˈmɑːɹuː/) 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 67456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manus is recorded at frequency rank #33,726, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmeɪnəs/. maru is at rank #33,730, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɑːɹuː/.

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 67456, this pair ranks #63,280 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of manus vs maru

Shared letters: amu. Private to "manus": ns. Private to "maru": r.

"manus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "maru" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manusamnus · mannus · mansu · manuss · mauns · mmanus · mnaus
  • maruamru · marru · maur · mmaru · mrau

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manus" for "maru" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈmeɪnəs/ versus /ˈmɑːɹuː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "manus" vs "maru" - which ranks higher?
"manus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,726 in our English list, against #33,730 for "maru". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "manus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maru" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,280 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manus" and "maru" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Marne vs maru". 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 #63,280 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list