Which to use
“maille” is a noun and “médaillé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,248
- “maille” frequency rank
- #20,793
- “médaillé” frequency rank
- 39041
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maille | médaillé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Chacune des boucles que forment des fils croisés ou noués en un point et qui constituent un tissu plus ou moins lâche. | Qui a reçu une ou des médailles. |
Where the eye mixes maille and médaillé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. maille runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against médaillé's 8 (CVCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: maille vs médaillé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maille is \mɑj\ while médaillé is \me.da.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39041, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maille is recorded at frequency rank #18,248, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑj\. médaillé is at rank #20,793, tagged as anadj, pronounced \me.da.je\.
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 39041, this pair ranks #250,941 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maille vs médaillé
Shared letters: ailm. Private to "maille": e. Private to "médaillé": dé.
"maille" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "médaillé" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- maille ← amille · maile · mailel · malile · mialle · mmaille
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "maille" for "médaillé" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "maille" or "médaillé" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "maille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "médaillé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #250,941 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maille" and "médaillé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maille vs Milla". 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 #250,941 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.