Which to use
“magma” is a noun and “magna” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,031
- “magma” frequency rank
- #37,416
- “magna” frequency rank
- 66447
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | magma | magna |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Résidu épais, lie restant après l’expression des parties fluides d’une substance. | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de magner. |
Where the eye mixes magma and magna
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. magma and magna follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses magma with magna
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: magma is \maɡ.ma\ while magna is \ma.ɲa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - m in “magma” becomes n in “magna”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66447, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
magma is recorded at frequency rank #29,031, classified as anoun, pronounced \maɡ.ma\. magna is at rank #37,416, tagged as averb, pronounced \ma.ɲa\.
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 66447, this pair ranks #67,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of magma vs magna
Shared letters: agm. Private to "magma": -. Private to "magna": n.
"magma" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "magna" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "magma" for "magna" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "magma" or "magna" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "magma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "magna" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #67,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "magma" and "magna" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magna vs Maura". 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 #67,789 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.