mailvsmalWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“mail” and “mal” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#4,803
“mail” frequency rank
#193
“mal” frequency rank
4996
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mail mal
Definition Correo electrónico, medio de comunicación que permite el envío y la recepción de mensajes escritos, que pueden acompañarse de otros tipos de archivos, a través de internet. Carencia de bondad.

Where the eye mixes mail and mal

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mail
3 ch
mal

Visual trap between mail and mal

A purely visual mix-up. mail ([ˈmejl]) and mal ([ˈmal]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4996, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mail is recorded at frequency rank #4,803, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈmejl]. mal is at rank #193, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmal].

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 4996, this pair ranks #314,736 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mail vs mal

Shared letters: alm. Private to "mail": i. Private to "mal": -.

"mail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mal" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mailamil · maill · mali · mial · mmail

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mail" and "mal" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈmejl] versus [ˈmal]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mail" or "mal"?
"mal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #193 in our Spanish list, against #4,803 for "mail". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mal" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #314,736 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mail" and "mal" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mail vs math". 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 #314,736 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list