maintenuevsmaintenusTell them apart

Which to use

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

#12,615
“maintenue” frequency rank
#19,064
“maintenus” frequency rank
31679
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maintenue maintenus
Definition Confirmation, par jugement, dans la possession d’un bien ou d’un droit litigieux. Pluriel de maintenu.

Same sound, different letters: maintenue vs maintenus

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. maintenue (CVVCCVCVV) and maintenus (CVVCCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
maintenue
9 ch
maintenus

Ear matches; page differs - maintenue and maintenus

This is the hard kind. maintenue and maintenus are pronounced identically (\mɛ̃.tə.ny\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “maintenue” becomes s in “maintenus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31679, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maintenue is recorded at frequency rank #12,615, classified as anoun, 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 31679, this pair ranks #302,273 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maintenue vs maintenus

Shared letters: aeimntu. Private to "maintenue": -. Private to "maintenus": s.

"maintenue" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVV  ·  "maintenus" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maintenue ← amintenue · mainetnue · mainntenue · mainteneu · maintennue · mainteune · maintneue · mainttenue
  • maintenus ← amintenus · mainetnus · mainntenus · maintennus · maintensu · maintenuss · mainteuns · maintneus

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maintenue" for "maintenus" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɛ̃.tə.ny\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "maintenue" or "maintenus" show up more?
"maintenue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,615 in our French list, against #19,064 for "maintenus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maintenue" 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 #302,273 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maintenue" 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 #302,273 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