mainevsmitaineWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: maine is a adjective, mitaine is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maine” is an adjective and “mitaine” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,880
“maine” frequency rank
#46,895
“mitaine” frequency rank
55775
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maine mitaine
Definition Grand. sauf Sorte de gant (de laine, de soie, de peau ou de matière synthétique), où la main entre tout entière, sans qu’il y ait de séparation pour les doigts, excepté pour le pouce ; moufle.

Letter map: maine vs mitaine

Shared letters muted; letters that set maine and mitaine apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. maine runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against mitaine's 7 (CVCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
maine
7 ch
mitaine

Grammar separator: maine vs mitaine

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maine is anadjective and mitaineanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55775, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maine is recorded at frequency rank #8,880, classified as anadj. mitaine is at rank #46,895, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.tɛn\.

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 55775, this pair ranks #125,319 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maine vs mitaine

Shared letters: aeimn. Private to "maine": -. Private to "mitaine": t.

"maine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "mitaine" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mainemaien · mainne · miane · mmaine
  • mitaineimtaine · miatine · mitaien · mitainne · mitanie · mitiane · mittaine · mmitaine

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maine" and "mitaine" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maine" is an adjective and "mitaine" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "maine" or "mitaine" show up more?
"maine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,880 in our French list, against #46,895 for "mitaine". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "maine" and "mitaine".

  • Full dictionary entry for "maine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mitaine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #125,319 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maine" and "mitaine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "migraine vs mitaine". 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 #125,319 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