manusvsmazesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#33,726
“manus” frequency rank
#42,261
“mazes” frequency rank
75987
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manus mazes
Definition A hand, as the part of the fore limb below the forearm in a human, or the corresponding part in other vertebrates. plural of maze

Where the eye mixes manus and mazes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. manus and mazes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
manus
5 ch
mazes

Visual trap between manus and mazes

A purely visual mix-up. manus (/ˈmeɪnəs/) and mazes (/ˈmeɪzɪz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75987, 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/. mazes is at rank #42,261, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmeɪzɪz/.

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 75987, this pair ranks #31,440 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of manus vs mazes

Shared letters: ams. Private to "manus": nu. Private to "mazes": ez.

"manus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "mazes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manus ← amnus · mannus · mansu · manuss · mauns · mmanus · mnaus
  • mazes ← amzes · maezs · mazess · mazse · mazzes · mmazes · mzaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "manus" and "mazes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈmeɪnəs/ versus /ˈmeɪzɪz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "manus" vs "mazes" - which ranks higher?
"manus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,726 in our English list, against #42,261 for "mazes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "manus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mazes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #31,440 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manus" and "mazes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magus vs mazes". 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 #31,440 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