mais oui
\mɛ wi\
The verdict
“mais oui” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an interjection - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Exclamation qu’on lance quand on vient de comprendre quelque chose d’important.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mais oui |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \mɛ wi\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mais oui” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for mais oui is 8 letters long, classified as an interjection, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \mɛ wi\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for mais oui in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is mais oui, spelled M-A-I-S- -O-U-I, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Exclamation qu’on lance quand on vient de comprendre quelque chose d’important.
- 2Exclamation pour répondre une affirmation appuyée à quelqu’un qui doute de la réponse.
- 3Exclamation de dénégation face à une assertion que l’on ne croit pas du tout. Elle est généralement dite deux fois.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “mais oui, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/mais-oui
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “mais oui”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-A-I-S- -O-U-I - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \mɛ wi\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our French index: