magretvsmaireConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#49,201
“magret” frequency rank
#1,142
“maire” frequency rank
50343
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature magret maire
Definition Filet de viande maigre découpé à partir de la poitrine d’une oie ou d’un canard gras. Premier officier municipal d’une commune, municipalité ou arrondissement, élu, en France, par les conseillers municipaux à l’issue des élections municipales, en Suisse, soit directement par le corps électoral (Jura), soit chaque année pour une année par le conseil municipal (Genève).

Where the eye mixes magret and maire

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. magret runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against maire's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
magret
5 ch
maire

Why the eye confuses magret with maire

A purely visual mix-up. magret (\ma.ɡʁɛ\) and maire (\mɛʁ\) 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 50343, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

magret is recorded at frequency rank #49,201, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ɡʁɛ\. maire is at rank #1,142, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\.

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 50343, this pair ranks #163,390 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of magret vs maire

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "magret": gt. Private to "maire": i.

"magret" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "maire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magret ← amgret · magert · maggret · magrett · magrret · magrte · marget · mgaret
  • maire ← amire · maier · mairre · marie · miare · mmaire

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "magret" and "maire" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ma.ɡʁɛ\ versus \mɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "magret" or "maire" show up more?
"maire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,142 in our French list, against #49,201 for "magret". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "magret" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #163,390 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "magret" and "maire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magret vs maigret". 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 #163,390 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