Which to use
“maille” is a noun and “mouillé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,248
- “maille” frequency rank
- #12,622
- “mouillé” frequency rank
- 30870
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maille | mouillé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Chacune des boucles que forment des fils croisés ou noués en un point et qui constituent un tissu plus ou moins lâche. | Qui est imbibé ou recouvert de gouttes de liquide, généralement de l’eau ; humide. |
Where the eye mixes maille and mouillé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. maille runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against mouillé's 7 (CVVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: maille vs mouillé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maille is \mɑj\ while mouillé is \mu.je\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30870, 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\. mouillé is at rank #12,622, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mu.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 30870, this pair ranks #307,481 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maille vs mouillé
Shared letters: ilm. Private to "maille": ae. Private to "mouillé": oué.
"maille" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "mouillé" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- maille ← amille · maile · mailel · malile · mialle · mmaille
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "maille" for "mouillé" ever safe?
Which is more common, "maille" or "mouillé"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "maille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mouillé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #307,481 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maille" and "mouillé" 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 #307,481 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.