Which to use
“Maes” is a name and “maid” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #39,386
- “Maes” frequency rank
- #49,778
- “maid” frequency rank
- 89164
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Maes | maid |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nom de famille néerlandais. | Servant·e, bonne, soubrette, généralement une femme. |
Where the eye mixes Maes and maid
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Maes and maid follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: Maes vs maid
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Maes is \maːs\ while maid is \med\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89164, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Maes is recorded at frequency rank #39,386, classified as aname, pronounced \maːs\. maid is at rank #49,778, tagged as anoun, pronounced \med\.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 89164, this pair ranks #6,105 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of Maes vs maid
Shared letters: am. Private to "Maes": es. Private to "maid": di.
"Maes" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "maid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Maes" for "maid" ever safe?
Frequency check: "Maes" vs "maid" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "Maes" and "maid" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "Maes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maid" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #6,105 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Maes" and "maid" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs mud". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #6,105 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.