mailsvsmaniesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,725
“mails” frequency rank
#46,880
“manies” frequency rank
54605
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mails manies
Definition Pluriel de mail. Pluriel de manie.

Where the eye mixes mails and manies

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
mails
6 ch
manies

Visual trap between mails and manies

A purely visual mix-up. mails (\maj\) and manies (\ma.ni\) 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 54605, 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\. manies is at rank #46,880, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ni\.

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 54605, this pair ranks #132,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mails vs manies

Shared letters: aims. Private to "mails": l. Private to "manies": en.

"mails" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "manies" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mailsamils · maills · mailss · maisl · malis · mials · mmails
  • maniesamnies · maines · maneis · maniess · manise · mannies · mmanies · mnaies

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mails" for "manies" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\maj\ versus \ma.ni\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "mails" vs "manies" - which ranks higher?
"mails" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,725 in our French list, against #46,880 for "manies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mails" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "manies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #132,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mails" and "manies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mane vs manies". 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 #132,904 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