maintenuvsmaintenuesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: maintenu is a verb, maintenues is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maintenu” is a verb and “maintenues” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,589
“maintenu” frequency rank
#26,085
“maintenues” frequency rank
33674
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maintenu maintenues
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de maintenir. Pluriel de maintenue.

Same sound, different letters: maintenu vs maintenues

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. maintenu runs 8 letters (CVVCCVCV) against maintenues's 10 (CVVCCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
maintenu
10 ch
maintenues

Ear matches; page differs - maintenu and maintenues

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: maintenu and maintenues carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mɛ̃.tə.ny\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “maintenu” sits inside “maintenues”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33674, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maintenu is recorded at frequency rank #7,589, classified as averb, pronounced \mɛ̃.tə.ny\. maintenues is at rank #26,085, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛ̃.tə.ny\.

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 33674, this pair ranks #289,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maintenu vs maintenues

Shared letters: aeimntu. Private to "maintenu": -. Private to "maintenues": s.

"maintenu" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV  ·  "maintenues" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maintenu ← amintenu · mainetnu · mainntenu · maintennu · mainteun · maintneu · mainttenu · maitnenu
  • maintenues ← amintenues · mainetnues · mainntenues · mainteneus · maintennues · maintenuess · maintenuse · mainteunes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maintenu" and "maintenues" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maintenu" is a verb and "maintenues" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "maintenu" or "maintenues" show up more?
"maintenu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,589 in our French list, against #26,085 for "maintenues". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"maintenu" and "maintenues" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maintenu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maintenues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #289,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maintenu" and "maintenues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maintenez vs maintenues". 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 #289,069 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