Which to use
“manus” and “maul” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,726
- “manus” frequency rank
- #32,913
- “maul” frequency rank
- 66639
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | manus | maul |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A hand, as the part of the fore limb below the forearm in a human, or the corresponding part in other vertebrates. | A heavy long-handled hammer, used for splitting logs by driving a wedge into them, or in combat. |
Where the eye mixes manus and maul
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. manus runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against maul's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses manus with maul
A purely visual mix-up. manus (/ˈmeɪnəs/) and maul (/mɔːl/) 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 66639, 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/. maul is at rank #32,913, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɔːl/.
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 66639, this pair ranks #67,097 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of manus vs maul
Shared letters: amu. Private to "manus": ns. Private to "maul": l.
"manus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "maul" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "manus" for "maul" ever safe?
Which is more common, "manus" or "maul"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "manus" and "maul" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "manus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maul" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #67,097 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "manus" and "maul" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marl vs maul". 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 #67,097 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.