mat

\ma\

/\ma\/ adj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“mat” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #6,319) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#6,319
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui n’a pas d’éclat, qui ne réfléchit pas la lumière. Se dit surtout des objets de métal qui n’ont pas reçu le poli définitif ou auxquels on a donné une patine spéciale.

Corpus desk

Index FR-mat · mat · French

mat · rank #6,319 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #6,319
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH massive

Nearest frequency peer: massive (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « mat »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « mat » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

mat vs me
33% similar
mat vs mm
33% similar
mat vs mi
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for mat
PropertyValue
Headwordmat
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\ma\
Letters3
Frequency rank#6,319
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « mat »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.matse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « massive » (#6,318), « mondes » (#6,320), « mariages » (#6,317). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « mat » est au #6,319. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for mat is neighbouring look-alikes ("me", "mm", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced \ma\. Frequency #6,319 among 5,038 “M” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

mat has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "me", "mm", "mi", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is mat, spelled M-A-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui n’a pas d’éclat, qui ne réfléchit pas la lumière. Se dit surtout des objets de métal qui n’ont pas reçu le poli définitif ou auxquels on a donné une patine spéciale.
  2. 2
    Coloris, couleur sans éclat.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how mat appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Tout à coup, à travers ce qui restait de brume, apparut à la surface des choses la lumière mate de la lune.
  2. Ses yeux regardaient Cloé sur leur lit de noces, mate, avec ses cheveux sombres et son nez droit, son front un peu bombé, sa figure à l'ovale arrondi et doux, et ses paupières fermées qui l'avaient rejetée du monde.

Synonyms

terne

This word in other languages

matte(English)mate(Español)fosco(Português)

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

How do you spell "mat"?
"mat" is spelled M-A-T. The IPA pronunciation is \ma\.
What does "mat" mean?
As an adjective, "mat" means: Qui n’a pas d’éclat, qui ne réfléchit pas la lumière. Se dit surtout des objets de métal qui n’ont pas reçu le poli définitif ou auxquels on a donné une patine spéciale.
What words are commonly confused with "mat"?
"mat" is commonly confused with "me", "mm", "mi". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mat"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mat" is \ma\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mat" come from?
"mat" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mat", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

bye#6,376hot#6,200ban#6,466are#6,166

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list