Which to use
“mage” is a noun and “mahé” is a postp - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #20,491
- “mage” frequency rank
- #44,035
- “mahé” frequency rank
- 64526
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mage | mahé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Prêtre de la religion de Zoroastre, chez les Perses et les Mèdes. | Dans, dedans. |
Where the eye mixes mage and mahé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. mage and mahé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses mage with mahé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mage is \maʒ\ while mahé is \ma.ˈhe\. 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 (noun vs postp), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64526, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mage is recorded at frequency rank #20,491, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʒ\. mahé is at rank #44,035, tagged as apostp, pronounced \ma.ˈhe\.
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 64526, this pair ranks #76,635 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mage vs mahé
Shared letters: am. Private to "mage": eg. Private to "mahé": hé.
"mage" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mahé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- mage ← amge · maeg · magge · mgae · mmage
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "mage" for "mahé" ever safe?
Which is more common, "mage" or "mahé"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "mage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mahé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #76,635 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mage" and "mahé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mahé vs MWh". 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 #76,635 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.