Which to use
“maintenait” is a verb and “maintenant” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,770
- “maintenait” frequency rank
- #234
- “maintenant” frequency rank
- 34004
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maintenait | maintenant |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de maintenir. | À l’instant présent ou dans la période de temps actuelle plus ou moins étendue. |
Where the eye mixes maintenait and maintenant
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. maintenait (CVVCCVCVVC) and maintenant (CVVCCVCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between maintenait and maintenant
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maintenait is \mɛ̃.tə.nɛ\ while maintenant is \mɛ̃t.nɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - i in “maintenait” becomes n in “maintenant”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34004, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maintenait is recorded at frequency rank #33,770, classified as averb, pronounced \mɛ̃.tə.nɛ\. maintenant is at rank #234, tagged as anadv, pronounced \mɛ̃t.nɑ̃\.
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 34004, this pair ranks #286,798 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maintenait vs maintenant
Shared letters: aeimnt. Private to "maintenait": -. Private to "maintenant": -.
"maintenait" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCVCVVC · "maintenant" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- maintenait ← amintenait · mainetnait · mainntenait · mainteanit · maintenaitt · maintenati · mainteniat · maintennait
- maintenant ← amintenant · mainetnant · mainntenant · mainteannt · maintenannt · maintenantt · maintenatn · maintennant
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "maintenait" for "maintenant" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "maintenait" or "maintenant" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "maintenait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maintenant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #286,798 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maintenait" and "maintenant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maintenant vs Maintenon". 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 #286,798 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.