magevsmixageTell them apart

Which to use

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

#20,491
“mage” frequency rank
#27,131
“mixage” frequency rank
47622
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mage mixage
Definition Prêtre de la religion de Zoroastre, chez les Perses et les Mèdes. Action de mixer, de mélanger.

Where the eye mixes mage and mixage

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mage runs 4 letters (CVCV) against mixage's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
mage
6 ch
mixage

Visual trap between mage and mixage

A purely visual mix-up. mage (\maʒ\) and mixage (\mik.saʒ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47622, 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\. mixage is at rank #27,131, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mik.saʒ\.

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 47622, this pair ranks #185,488 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mage vs mixage

Shared letters: aegm. Private to "mage": -. Private to "mixage": ix.

"mage" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mixage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mage ← amge · maeg · magge · mgae · mmage
  • mixage ← imxage · miaxge · mixaeg · mixagge · mixgae · mixxage · mmixage · mxiage

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mage" and "mixage" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\maʒ\ versus \mik.saʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mage" or "mixage"?
"mage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,491 in our French list, against #27,131 for "mixage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "mage" and "mixage" 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 "mixage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,488 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mage" and "mixage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mage vs MSG". 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 #185,488 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