Which to use
“maintenu” is a verb and “maintenus” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,589
- “maintenu” frequency rank
- #19,064
- “maintenus” frequency rank
- 26653
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maintenu | maintenus |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé masculin singulier de maintenir. | Pluriel de maintenu. |
Same sound, different letters: maintenu vs maintenus
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - maintenu and maintenus
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: maintenu and maintenus 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 1 extra letter(s) - “maintenu” sits inside “maintenus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26653, 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\. maintenus is at rank #19,064, 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 26653, this pair ranks #333,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of maintenu vs maintenus
Shared letters: aeimntu. Private to "maintenu": -. Private to "maintenus": s.
"maintenu" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV · "maintenus" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maintenu" and "maintenus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "maintenu" vs "maintenus" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
"maintenu" and "maintenus" 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 "maintenus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #333,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maintenu" and "maintenus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Maintenon vs maintenus". 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 #333,648 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.