maternité

\ma.tɛʁ.ni.te\

/\ma.tɛʁ.ni.te\/ noun

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

The verdict

“maternité” has 14 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #9,695. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#9,695
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
14
tracked misspellings
3
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - État, qualité de mère.

Corpus desk

Index FR-maternite · maternité · French

maternité · rank #9,695 · 14 variants · 3 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #9,695
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-LOW 3 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 14 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH mas

Nearest frequency peer: mas (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « maternité »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « maternité » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

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).

maternité vs maturité
78% similar
maternité vs modernité
78% similar
maternité vs maternités
90% similar

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

Key facts for maternité
PropertyValue
Headwordmaternité
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ma.tɛʁ.ni.te\
Letters9
Frequency rank#9,695
Misspellings tracked14
Confusable pairs3
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « maternité »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).maternitése 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 « mas » (#9,694), « mexicain » (#9,696), « Marcus » (#9,693). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « maternité » est au #9,695. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 14 spelling variants around maternité (IPA \ma.tɛʁ.ni.te\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #9,695 among 5,038 “M” headwords. Wiktionary lists 4 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for maternité, with forms such as "amternité", "maetrnité", and "matenrité". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "maturité", "modernité", "maternités", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is maternité, spelled M-A-T-E-R-N-I-T-É.

Definition

  1. 1
    État, qualité de mère.
  2. 2
    Grossesse, gestation, fait de porter un enfant et d’accoucher.
  3. 3
    Établissement destiné à recevoir les personnes qui vont accoucher, à les assister lors de la naissance de leur enfant et les premiers jours du nourrisson.
  4. 4
    Qualité d’autrice.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Déjà subjugués par notre propre cœur, nous fûmes accablés par ces images d’amour et de maternité, qui semblaient nous poursuivre dans ces solitudes enchantées.
  2. En effet, chez une jeune femme dont le cœur est encore pur, et où l’amour est resté vierge, le sentiment de la maternité même est soumis à la voix de la pudeur.

This word in other languages

motherhood(English)maternidad(Español)Mutterschaft(Deutsch)maternidade(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • amternité
  • maetrnité
  • matenrité
  • materinté
  • maternite
  • maternitté
  • materniét
  • maternnité
  • materntié
  • materrnité
  • matrenité
  • matternité
  • mmaternité
  • mtaernité

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of maternité - 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.

amternité2maetrnité2matenrité2materinté2maternite1maternitté1materniét2maternnité1
Edit distance from "maternité"

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 "maternité"?
"maternité" is spelled M-A-T-E-R-N-I-T-É. The IPA pronunciation is \ma.tɛʁ.ni.te\.
What does "maternité" mean?
As a noun, "maternité" means: État, qualité de mère.
What words are commonly confused with "maternité"?
"maternité" is commonly confused with "maturité", "modernité", "maternités". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "maternité"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "maternité" is \ma.tɛʁ.ni.te\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "maternité" come from?
"maternité" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "maternité", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

lesbienne#9,688négatives#9,707profitant#9,725recueilli#9,729

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (14 here; floor ≥5).

homosexuel14 variantsredoutable14 variantsfermement14 variantsexistants14 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list