Which to use
“maiden” and “maires” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,878
- “maiden” frequency rank
- #5,362
- “maires” frequency rank
- 52240
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maiden | maires |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cheval n'ayant jamais gagné une course. | Pluriel de maire. |
Where the eye mixes maiden and maires
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. maiden and maires follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: maiden vs maires
A purely visual mix-up. maiden (\me.dɛn\) and maires (\mɛʁ\) 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 52240, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maiden is recorded at frequency rank #46,878, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.dɛn\. maires is at rank #5,362, 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 52240, this pair ranks #149,103 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maiden vs maires
Shared letters: aeim. Private to "maiden": dn. Private to "maires": rs.
"maiden" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "maires" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maiden" and "maires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "maiden" vs "maires" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "maiden" and "maires" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "maiden" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #149,103 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maiden" and "maires" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs maiden". 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 #149,103 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.