maintevsmoiteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#45,723
“mainte” frequency rank
#40,376
“moite” frequency rank
86099
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mainte moite
Definition Féminin singulier de maint. Qui a quelque humidité, qui est un peu mouillé. Se dit surtout de la peau rendue humide par la sueur.

Where the eye mixes mainte and moite

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

6 ch
mainte
5 ch
moite

Why the eye confuses mainte with moite

A purely visual mix-up. mainte (\mɛ̃t\) and moite (\mwat\) 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 86099, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mainte is recorded at frequency rank #45,723, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɛ̃t\. moite is at rank #40,376, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mwat\.

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 86099, this pair ranks #10,228 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mainte vs moite

Shared letters: eimt. Private to "mainte": an. Private to "moite": o.

"mainte" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "moite" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mainteaminte · mainet · mainnte · maintte · maitne · manite · miante · mmainte
  • moitemiote · mmoite · moiet · moitte · motie · omite

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mainte" for "moite" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɛ̃t\ versus \mwat\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mainte" or "moite"?
"moite" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,376 in our French list, against #45,723 for "mainte". 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 "mainte" and "moite" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mainte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moite" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,228 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mainte" and "moite" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mainte vs mane". 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 #10,228 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