MayesvsmovesConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#46,054
“Mayes” frequency rank
#2,546
“moves” frequency rank
48600
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mayes moves
Definition A surname. plural of move

Letter map: Mayes vs moves

Shared letters muted; letters that set Mayes and moves apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
Mayes
5 ch
moves

Part-of-speech tell for Mayes / moves

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Mayes is aname and movesanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48600, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mayes is recorded at frequency rank #46,054, classified as aname. moves is at rank #2,546, tagged as anoun, pronounced /muːvz/.

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 48600, this pair ranks #191,522 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Mayes vs moves

Shared letters: ems. Private to "Mayes": ay. Private to "moves": ov.

"Mayes" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "moves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mayesamyes · maeys · mayess · mayse · mayyes · mmayes · myaes
  • movesmmoves · moevs · movess · movse · movves · mvoes · omves

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Mayes" for "moves" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mayes" is a name and "moves" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Mayes" or "moves"?
"moves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,546 in our English list, against #46,054 for "Mayes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Mayes" and "moves".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mayes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #191,522 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mayes" and "moves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magus vs Mayes". 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 #191,522 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