mailvsmoiWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mail is a noun, moi is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mail” is a noun and “moi” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,936
“mail” frequency rank
#73
“moi” frequency rank
3009
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mail moi
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. Pronom tonique de la première personne du singulier.

Where the eye mixes mail and moi

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

4 ch
mail
3 ch
moi

Why the eye confuses mail with moi

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mail is \maj\ while moi is \mwa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3009, 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\. moi is at rank #73, tagged as apron, pronounced \mwa\.

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 3009, this pair ranks #435,006 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mail vs moi

Shared letters: im. Private to "mail": al. Private to "moi": o.

"mail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "moi" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mailamil · maill · mial · mmail

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mail" for "moi" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mail" is a noun and "moi" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mail" vs "moi" - which ranks higher?
"moi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #73 in our French list, against #2,936 for "mail". 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 "mail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #435,006 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mail" and "moi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs mail". 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 #435,006 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