MaesvsmisesTell them apart

Quick tell: Maes is a name, mises is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Maes” is a name and “mises” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,386
“Maes” frequency rank
#2,485
“mises” frequency rank
41871
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Maes mises
Definition Nom de famille néerlandais. Féminin pluriel de mise.

Where the eye mixes Maes and mises

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Maes runs 4 letters (CVVC) against mises's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
Maes
5 ch
mises

Visual trap between Maes and mises

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Maes is \maːs\ while mises is \miz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41871, 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\. mises is at rank #2,485, tagged as anadj, pronounced \miz\.

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 41871, this pair ranks #229,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Maes vs mises

Shared letters: ems. Private to "Maes": a. Private to "mises": i.

"Maes" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mises" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Maes ← maess · meas · mmaes
  • mises ← imses · miess · misess · misses · mmises · msies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Maes" and "mises" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Maes" is a name and "mises" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Maes" vs "mises" - which ranks higher?
"mises" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,485 in our French list, against #39,386 for "Maes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Maes" and "mises" 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 "mises" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #229,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Maes" and "mises" 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 #229,902 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list