maire
\mɛʁ\
The verdict
“maire” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #1,142 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,142
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Premier officier municipal d’une commune, municipalité ou arrondissement, élu, en France, par les conseillers municipaux à l’issue des élections municipales, en Suisse, soit directement par le corp...
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 | maire |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \mɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,142 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “maire” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for maire is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \mɛʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,142 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for maire, with forms such as "amire", "maier", and "mairre". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mar", "mie", "mir", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is maire, spelled M-A-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1Premier officier municipal d’une commune, municipalité ou arrondissement, élu, en France, par les conseillers municipaux à l’issue des élections municipales, en Suisse, soit directement par le corps électoral (Jura), soit chaque année pour une année par le conseil municipal (Genève).
- 2Sorte de conseiller du roi qui, en fait, sous les mérovingiens, exerçait le pouvoir.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amire,maier,mairre,marie,miare,mmaire
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of maire - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “maire”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-A-I-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \mɛʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “mar” - see the side-by-side comparison. maire vs mar
- 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.