Maes vs May, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“Maes” and “May” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#39,386
“Maes” frequency rank: #7,083
“May” frequency rank: 46469
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Maes	May
Definition	Nom de famille néerlandais.	Nom de famille.

Where the eye mixes Maes and May

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch

Maes

3 ch

May

Visual trap between Maes and May

A purely visual mix-up. Maes (\maːs\) and May (\me\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46469, 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\. May is at rank #7,083, tagged as aname, pronounced \me\.

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 46469, this pair ranks #194,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Maes vs May

Shared letters: am. Private to "Maes": es. Private to "May": y.

"Maes" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "May" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

Maes ← maess · meas · mmaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Maes" and "May" be used interchangeably?

No. They are said differently (\maːs\ versus \me\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

Which is more common, "Maes" or "May"?

"May" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,083 in our French list, against #39,386 for "Maes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

Full dictionary entry for "Maes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "May" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #194,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Maes" and "May" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Maes vs maid". 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 #194,686 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.