matevsMTAWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mate is a noun, MTA is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mate” is a noun and “MTA” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,743
“mate” frequency rank
#32,090
“MTA” frequency rank
34833
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mate MTA
Definition A fellow, comrade, colleague, partner or someone with whom something is shared, e.g. shipmate, classmate. Initialism of Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Letter map: mate vs MTA

Shared letters muted; letters that set mate and MTA apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
mate
3 ch
MTA

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mate is anoun and MTAaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34833, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mate is recorded at frequency rank #2,743, classified as anoun, pronounced /meɪt/. MTA is at rank #32,090, tagged as aname.

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 34833, this pair ranks #317,272 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mate vs MTA

Shared letters: amt. Private to "mate": e. Private to "MTA": -.

"mate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "MTA" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mateamte · mmate · mtae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mate" and "MTA" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mate" is a noun and "MTA" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mate" or "MTA"?
"mate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,743 in our English list, against #32,090 for "MTA". 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