magicvsmanipWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,190
“magic” frequency rank
#36,483
“manip” frequency rank
48673
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature magic manip
Definition Magie. Opération.

Where the eye mixes magic and manip

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

5 ch
magic
5 ch
manip

Look-alike desk: magic vs manip

A purely visual mix-up. magic (\ˈmædʒ.ɪk\) and manip (\ma.nip\) 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 48673, 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\. manip is at rank #36,483, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.nip\.

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 48673, this pair ranks #176,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of magic vs manip

Shared letters: aim. Private to "magic": cg. Private to "manip": np.

"magic" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "manip" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magicamgic · magci · maggic · magicc · maigc · mgaic · mmagic
  • manipamnip · mainp · manipp · mannip · manpi · mmanip · mnaip

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "magic" for "manip" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈmædʒ.ɪk\ versus \ma.nip\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "magic" or "manip" show up more?
"magic" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,190 in our French list, against #36,483 for "manip". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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 "manip" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #176,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "magic" and "manip" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs manip". 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 #176,926 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