magicvsmaidConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#12,190
“magic” frequency rank
#49,778
“maid” frequency rank
61968
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature magic maid
Definition Magie. Servant·e, bonne, soubrette, généralement une femme.

Where the eye mixes magic and maid

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
magic
4 ch
maid

Look-alike desk: magic vs maid

A purely visual mix-up. magic (\ˈmædʒ.ɪk\) and maid (\med\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61968, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

magic is recorded at frequency rank #12,190, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmædʒ.ɪk\. maid is at rank #49,778, tagged as anoun, pronounced \med\.

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 61968, this pair ranks #89,519 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of magic vs maid

Shared letters: aim. Private to "magic": cg. Private to "maid": d.

"magic" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "maid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magicamgic · magci · maggic · magicc · maigc · mgaic · mmagic
  • maidamid · madi · maidd · miad · mmaid

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "magic" and "maid" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈmædʒ.ɪk\ versus \med\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "magic" vs "maid" - which ranks higher?
"magic" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,190 in our French list, against #49,778 for "maid". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "magic" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maid" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #89,519 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "magic" and "maid" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs mud". 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 #89,519 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