marevsMauWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,015
“mare” frequency rank
#26,500
“Mau” frequency rank
39515
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mare Mau
Definition An adult female horse. A kind of short-haired domestic cat.

Letter map: mare vs Mau

Shared letters muted; letters that set mare and Mau apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
mare
3 ch
Mau

Pair insight - mare / Mau

mare and Mau are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39515, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mare is recorded at frequency rank #13,015, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɛə/. Mau is at rank #26,500, tagged as anoun.

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 39515, this pair ranks #275,961 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mare vs Mau

Shared letters: am. Private to "mare": er. Private to "Mau": u.

"mare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Mau" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mareamre · maer · marre · mmare · mrae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mare" and "Mau" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "mare" vs "Mau" - which ranks higher?
"mare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,015 in our English list, against #26,500 for "Mau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "mare" and "Mau". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #275,961 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mare" and "Mau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mau vs MPAA". 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 #275,961 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