mis

\mi\

/\mi\/ verb

The verdict

“mis” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #339) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#339
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Participe passé masculin de mettre.

Corpus desk

Index FR-mis · mis · French

mis · rank #339 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #339
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH jeune

Nearest frequency peer: jeune (-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 « mis »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « mis » 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).

mis vs mm
33% similar
mis vs MR
0% similar
mis vs my
33% similar

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

Key facts for mis
PropertyValue
Headwordmis
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\mi\
Letters3
Frequency rank#339
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « mis »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).misse place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « jeune » (#338), « système » (#340), « fils » (#337). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « mis » est au #339. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for mis is neighbouring look-alikes ("mm", "MR", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced \mi\. Frequency #339 among 5,038 “M” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

mis has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mm", "MR", "my", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is mis, spelled M-I-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Participe passé masculin de mettre.
  2. 2
    Première personne du singulier du passé simple de mettre.
  3. 3
    Deuxième personne du singulier du passé simple de mettre.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Cette guerre qui fut un affrontement entre « le germanisme et l’esprit universel conçu par la France », a mis en jeu non pas la victoire d’une nation sur une autre, mais la civilisation elle-même.
  2. Et évidemment, ces petits cons d’élèves n’ayant eu aucune envie de se révolter, elle avait fait un bond de deux mètres lorsque le réveil s’était mis à greluchonner connement sur la petite table encombrée de nuit tiède.

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 "mis"?
"mis" is spelled M-I-S. The IPA pronunciation is \mi\.
What does "mis" mean?
As a verb, "mis" means: Participe passé masculin de mettre.
What words are commonly confused with "mis"?
"mis" is commonly confused with "mm", "MR", "my". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mis"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mis" is \mi\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mis" come from?
"mis" 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 "mis", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list