Which to use
“maid” and “maïs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #49,778
- “maid” frequency rank
- #6,849
- “maïs” frequency rank
- 56627
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maid | maïs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Servant·e, bonne, soubrette, généralement une femme. | Nom vernaculaire de Zea mays subsp. mays, — et de ses cultivars —, plante herbacée de la famille des Poaceae (ou Poacées ou Graminées), originaire du Mexique et du Guatemala, à tige droite et aux feuilles lancéolées, et que l’on cultive comme plante fourragère ou pour ses graines. |
Where the eye mixes maid and maïs
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. maid (\med\) and maïs (\ma.is\) 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 56627, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maid is recorded at frequency rank #49,778, classified as anoun, pronounced \med\. maïs is at rank #6,849, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.is\.
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 56627, this pair ranks #119,916 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maid vs maïs
Shared letters: am. Private to "maid": di. Private to "maïs": sï.
"maid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "maïs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- maid ← amid · madi · maidd · miad · mmaid