Which to use
“mage” and “mane” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,491
- “mage” frequency rank
- #47,441
- “mane” frequency rank
- 67932
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mage | mane |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Prêtre de la religion de Zoroastre, chez les Perses et les Mèdes. | Crinière. |
Where the eye mixes mage and mane
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. mage and mane 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 mane
A purely visual mix-up. mage (\maʒ\) and mane (\meɪn\) 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 a single letter - g in “mage” becomes n in “mane”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67932, 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\. mane is at rank #47,441, tagged as anoun, pronounced \meɪn\.
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 67932, this pair ranks #61,338 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mage vs mane
Shared letters: aem. Private to "mage": g. Private to "mane": n.
"mage" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mane" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "mage" for "mane" ever safe?
Which is more common, "mage" or "mane"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "mage" and "mane" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "mage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mane" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #61,338 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mage" and "mane" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs mane". 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 #61,338 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.