magevsmamiConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#20,491
“mage” frequency rank
#45,158
“mami” frequency rank
65649
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mage mami
Definition Prêtre de la religion de Zoroastre, chez les Perses et les Mèdes. Nourrisson, petit enfant.

Where the eye mixes mage and mami

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. mage and mami follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
mage
4 ch
mami

Why the eye confuses mage with mami

A purely visual mix-up. mage (\maʒ\) and mami (\ma.mi\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65649, 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\. mami is at rank #45,158, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.mi\.

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 65649, this pair ranks #71,389 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mage vs mami

Shared letters: am. Private to "mage": eg. Private to "mami": i.

"mage" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mami" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mage ← amge · maeg · magge · mgae · mmage
  • mami ← ammi · mammi · mmai · mmami

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mage" and "mami" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\maʒ\ versus \ma.mi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mage" or "mami"?
"mage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,491 in our French list, against #45,158 for "mami". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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 "mami" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,389 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mage" and "mami" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mami vs memo". 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 #71,389 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