YamavsyeaConfusable pair

Quick tell: Yama is a name, yea is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#48,024
“Yama” frequency rank
#4,645
“yea” frequency rank
52669
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Yama yea
Definition The Hindu lord of death, who rides a buffalo. Yes, indeed.

Letter map: Yama vs yea

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

4 ch
Yama
3 ch
yea

Grammar separator: Yama vs yea

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Yama is aname and yeaanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52669, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Yama is recorded at frequency rank #48,024, classified as aname. yea is at rank #4,645, tagged as anadv, pronounced /jeɪ/.

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 52669, this pair ranks #155,127 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Yama vs yea

Shared letters: ay. Private to "Yama": m. Private to "yea": e.

"Yama" · 4 letters · shape VVCV  ·  "yea" · 3 letters · shape VVV

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Yama" for "yea" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Yama" is a name and "yea" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Yama" vs "yea" - which ranks higher?
"yea" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,645 in our English list, against #48,024 for "Yama". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "Yama" vs "yea" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Yama" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "yea" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #155,127 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Yama" and "yea" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Yama 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 #155,127 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