mar vs my, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“mar” is a verb and “my” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,233
“mar” frequency rank: #27
“my” frequency rank: 5260
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	mar	my
Definition	To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.	First-person singular possessive determiner. See Appendix:Possessive#English.

Where the eye mixes mar and my

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

mar

2 ch

Look-alike desk: mar vs my

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mar is /mɑː(ɹ)/ while my is /maɪ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5260, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mar is recorded at frequency rank #5,233, classified as averb, pronounced /mɑː(ɹ)/. my is at rank #27, tagged as adet, pronounced /maɪ/.

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 5260, this pair ranks #515,997 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mar vs my

Shared letters: m. Private to "mar": ar. Private to "my": y.

"mar" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "my" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mar" and "my" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mar" is a verb and "my" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "mar" or "my"?

"my" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27 in our English list, against #5,233 for "mar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

Full dictionary entry for "mar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "my" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #515,997 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"mar" and "my" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mar vs MPAA". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #515,997 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.