mayavsMayasWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: maya is a adjective, Mayas is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maya” is an adjective and “Mayas” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,616
“maya” frequency rank
#35,595
“Mayas” frequency rank
47211
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maya Mayas
Definition Relatif aux Mayas —peuple amérindien précolombien qui occupait le sud du Mexique et l’Amérique centrale (Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua) entre le Iᵉ siècle avant J.-C. et le Xᵉ siècle de notre ère—, ainsi qu’à leurs descendants, à leur langue et à leur culture. Peuple amérindien précolombien qui occupait le Sud du Mexique et l’Amérique centrale (Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua) entre le Iᵉʳ siècle avant J.-C. et le Xᵉ siècle de notre ère.

Same sound, different letters: maya vs Mayas

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

4 ch
maya
5 ch
Mayas

Same sound, different spelling - maya / Mayas

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: maya and Mayas carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ma.ja\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “maya” sits inside “Mayas”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47211, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maya is recorded at frequency rank #11,616, classified as anadj, pronounced \ma.ja\. Mayas is at rank #35,595, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ja\.

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 47211, this pair ranks #188,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maya vs Mayas

Shared letters: amy. Private to "maya": -. Private to "Mayas": s.

"maya" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "Mayas" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mayaamya · maay · mayya · mmaya · myaa
  • Mayasamyas · maays · mayass · maysa · mayyas · mmayas · myaas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maya" and "Mayas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maya" is an adjective and "Mayas" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "maya" or "Mayas"?
"maya" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,616 in our French list, against #35,595 for "Mayas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maya" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mayas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #188,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maya" and "Mayas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mads vs Mayas". 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 #188,677 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list