\maj\
The verdict
“mail” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #2,936 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,936
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Petite masse cylindrique de bois, à long manche, dont on se servait pour jouer en poussant, en chassant avec force une boule de buis.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \maj\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,936 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mail” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for mail is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \maj\. Corpus data places it at rank #2,936 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for mail, with forms such as "amil", "maill", and "mial". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mi", "ML", "moi", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is mail, spelled M-A-I-L.
Definition
- 1Petite masse cylindrique de bois, à long manche, dont on se servait pour jouer en poussant, en chassant avec force une boule de buis.
- 2Jeu où l’on fait usage du mail.
- 3Lieu, l’allée où l’on joue au mail.
- 4Dans quelques villes, pour désigner la promenade publique où l’on jouait autrefois au mail.
- 5Gros marteau dont se sert le carrier pour enfoncer les coins entre les joints ou dans les entailles des pierres.
- 6Travail, boulot.
- 7Véhicule de transport collectif dans certaines villes.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amil,maill,mial,mmail
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mail - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “mail”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-A-I-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \maj\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “mi” - see the side-by-side comparison. mail vs mi
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.