mahévsmathWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mahé is a postp, math is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mahé” is a postp and “math” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,035
“mahé” frequency rank
#11,994
“math” frequency rank
56029
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mahé math
Definition Dans, dedans. Variante orthographique de maths.

Where the eye mixes mahé and math

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

4 ch
mahé
4 ch
math

Look-alike desk: mahé vs math

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mahé is \ma.ˈhe\ while math is \mat\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (postp vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56029, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mahé is recorded at frequency rank #44,035, classified as apostp, pronounced \ma.ˈhe\. math is at rank #11,994, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mat\.

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 56029, this pair ranks #123,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mahé vs math

Shared letters: ahm. Private to "mahé": é. Private to "math": t.

"mahé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "math" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mathamth · maht · mathh · matth · mmath · mtah

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mahé" and "math" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mahé" is a postp and "math" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mahé" vs "math" - which ranks higher?
"math" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,994 in our French list, against #44,035 for "mahé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mahé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "math" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #123,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mahé" and "math" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mahé vs MWh". 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 #123,685 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