mediavsmelaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#505
“media” frequency rank
#49,487
“mela” frequency rank
49992
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature media mela
Definition The middle layer of the wall of a blood vessel or lymph vessel which is composed of connective and muscular tissue. A Hindu religious festival.

Letter map: media vs mela

Shared letters muted; letters that set media and mela apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. media runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against mela's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
media
4 ch
mela

Pair insight - media / mela

media and mela 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 49992, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

media is recorded at frequency rank #505, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmiː.di.ə/. mela is at rank #49,487, 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 49992, this pair ranks #178,345 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of media vs mela

Shared letters: aem. Private to "media": di. Private to "mela": l.

"media" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "mela" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • media ← emdia · mdeia · medai · meddia · meida · mmedia
  • mela ← emla · mella · mlea · mmela

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "media" and "mela" mean the same thing in a sentence?
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: "media" vs "mela" - which ranks higher?
"media" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #505 in our English list, against #49,487 for "mela". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "media" and "mela". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "media" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mela" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,345 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "media" and "mela" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mela 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 #178,345 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