Which to use
“mails” and “maïs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,725
- “mails” frequency rank
- #6,849
- “maïs” frequency rank
- 14574
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mails | maïs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de mail. | Nom vernaculaire de Zea mays subsp. mays, — et de ses cultivars —, plante herbacée de la famille des Poaceae (ou Poacées ou Graminées), originaire du Mexique et du Guatemala, à tige droite et aux feuilles lancéolées, et que l’on cultive comme plante fourragère ou pour ses graines. |
Where the eye mixes mails and maïs
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between mails and maïs
A purely visual mix-up. mails (\maj\) and maïs (\ma.is\) 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 14574, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mails is recorded at frequency rank #7,725, classified as anoun, pronounced \maj\. maïs is at rank #6,849, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.is\.
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 14574, this pair ranks #396,081 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of mails vs maïs
Shared letters: ams. Private to "mails": il. Private to "maïs": ï.
"mails" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "maïs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- mails ← amils · maills · mailss · maisl · malis · mials · mmails
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mails" and "maïs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "mails" or "maïs"?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "mails" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maïs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #396,081 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mails" and "maïs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs mails". 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 #396,081 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.