mailvsmajWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,936
“mail” frequency rank
#18,249
“maj” frequency rank
21185
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mail maj
Definition Petite masse cylindrique de bois, à long manche, dont on se servait pour jouer en poussant, en chassant avec force une boule de buis. Major.

Where the eye mixes mail and maj

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mail
3 ch
maj

Look-alike desk: mail vs maj

A purely visual mix-up. mail (\maj\) and maj (\maʒ\) 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 21185, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mail is recorded at frequency rank #2,936, classified as anoun, pronounced \maj\. maj is at rank #18,249, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʒ\.

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 21185, this pair ranks #364,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mail vs maj

Shared letters: am. Private to "mail": il. Private to "maj": j.

"mail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "maj" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mailamil · maill · mial · mmail

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mail" and "maj" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\maj\ versus \maʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "mail" vs "maj" - which ranks higher?
"mail" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,936 in our French list, against #18,249 for "maj". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "mail" and "maj" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maj" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #364,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mail" and "maj" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maj 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 #364,453 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