mena

\mə.na\

/\mə.na\/ verb

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

The verdict

“mena” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #20,196) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#20,196
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
4
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de mener.

Corpus desk

Index FR-mena · mena · French

mena · rank #20,196 · 4 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #20,196
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 4 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH memorial

Nearest frequency peer: memorial (-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 « mena »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « mena » 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).

mena vs MN
0% similar
mena vs mon
50% similar
mena vs mes
50% similar

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

Key facts for mena
PropertyValue
Headwordmena
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\mə.na\
Letters4
Frequency rank#20,196
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « mena »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).menase 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 « memorial » (#20,195), « Michaël » (#20,197), « marchais » (#20,194). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « mena » est au #20,196. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for mena is neighbouring look-alikes ("MN", "mon", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced \mə.na\. Frequency #20,196 among 5,038 “M” headwords. Gloss: "Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de mener.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for mena, with forms such as "emna", "menna", and "mmena". 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, "MN", "mon", "mes", 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, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is mena, spelled M-E-N-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de mener.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. Les Cahiers Mac Orlan quant à eux, dont l’Association des amis est présidée par l’infatigable Francis Lacassin (et qui mena un combat homérique et imbrogliesque avec la municipalité de Saint-Cyr-sur-Morin, où l’écrivain avait sa maison), mettent un point d’honneur à publier des inédits de l’auteur du Quai des brumes.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • emna
  • menna
  • mmena
  • mnea

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mena - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

emna2menna1mmena1mnea2
Edit distance from "mena"

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 "mena"?
"mena" is spelled M-E-N-A. The IPA pronunciation is \mə.na\.
What does "mena" mean?
As a verb, "mena" means: Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de mener.
What words are commonly confused with "mena"?
"mena" is commonly confused with "MN", "mon", "mes". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mena"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mena" is \mə.na\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mena" come from?
"mena" 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 "mena", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

kara#20,181Jeep#20,180ISBN#20,176Olga#20,218

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list