mailsvsmissWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,725
“mails” frequency rank
#3,086
“miss” frequency rank
10811
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mails miss
Definition Pluriel de mail. Mademoiselle en Angleterre ou dans le monde anglo-saxon.

Where the eye mixes mails and miss

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
mails
4 ch
miss

Visual trap between mails and miss

A purely visual mix-up. mails (\maj\) and miss (\mis\) 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 10811, 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\. miss is at rank #3,086, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mis\.

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 10811, this pair ranks #411,575 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mails vs miss

Shared letters: ims. Private to "mails": al. Private to "miss": -.

"mails" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "miss" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mailsamils · maills · mailss · maisl · malis · mials · mmails
  • missimss · mmiss · msis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mails" and "miss" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\maj\ versus \mis\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mails" or "miss"?
"miss" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,086 in our French list, against #7,725 for "mails". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "mails" and "miss" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mails" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "miss" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #411,575 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mails" and "miss" 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 #411,575 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