YamavsyatWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#48,024
“Yama” frequency rank
#48,026
“yat” frequency rank
96050
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Yama yat
Definition The Hindu lord of death, who rides a buffalo. A vowel letter of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet (Cyrillic capital Ѣ, Cyrillic small ѣ, Glagolitic ⱑ), no longer in current use

Letter map: Yama vs yat

Shared letters muted; letters that set Yama and yat apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Yama runs 4 letters (VVCV) against yat's 3 (VVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
Yama
3 ch
yat

Role in the sentence - Yama and yat

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Yama is aname and yatanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 96050, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Yama is recorded at frequency rank #48,024, classified as aname. yat is at rank #48,026, 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 96050, this pair ranks #714 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Yama vs yat

Shared letters: ay. Private to "Yama": m. Private to "yat": t.

"Yama" · 4 letters · shape VVCV  ·  "yat" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Yama ← ayma · yaam · yamma · ymaa · yyama

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Yama" for "yat" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Yama" is a name and "yat" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Yama" or "yat"?
"Yama" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48,024 in our English list, against #48,026 for "yat". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Yama" and "yat".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Yama" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "yat" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #714 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Yama" and "yat" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "yat vs Yau". 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 #714 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