markvsmawWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#949
“mark” frequency rank
#30,495
“maw” frequency rank
31444
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mark maw
Definition Boundary, land within a boundary. The stomach, especially of an animal.

Where the eye mixes mark and maw

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mark
3 ch
maw

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. mark (/mɑːk/) and maw (/mɔː/) 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 31444, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mark is recorded at frequency rank #949, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɑːk/. maw is at rank #30,495, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɔː/.

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 31444, this pair ranks #346,079 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mark vs maw

Shared letters: am. Private to "mark": kr. Private to "maw": w.

"mark" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "maw" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • markamrk · makr · markk · marrk · mmark · mrak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mark" and "maw" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/mɑːk/ versus /mɔː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mark" or "maw"?
"mark" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #949 in our English list, against #30,495 for "maw". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list