maintenuevsmaintienneWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#12,615
“maintenue” frequency rank
#43,000
“maintienne” frequency rank
55615
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maintenue maintienne
Definition Confirmation, par jugement, dans la possession d’un bien ou d’un droit litigieux. Première personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de maintenir.

Where the eye mixes maintenue and maintienne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. maintenue runs 9 letters (CVVCCVCVV) against maintienne's 10 (CVVCCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
maintenue
10 ch
maintienne

Visual trap between maintenue and maintienne

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maintenue is \mɛ̃.tə.ny\ while maintienne is \mɛ̃.tjɛn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55615, 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\. maintienne is at rank #43,000, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɛ̃.tjɛn\.

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 55615, this pair ranks #126,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maintenue vs maintienne

Shared letters: aeimnt. Private to "maintenue": u. Private to "maintienne": -.

"maintenue" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVV  ·  "maintienne" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maintenue ← amintenue · mainetnue · mainntenue · mainteneu · maintennue · mainteune · maintneue · mainttenue
  • maintienne ← amintienne · mainitenne · mainntienne · mainteinne · maintiene · maintienen · maintinene · mainttienne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maintenue" for "maintienne" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maintenue" is a noun and "maintienne" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "maintenue" or "maintienne" show up more?
"maintenue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,615 in our French list, against #43,000 for "maintienne". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "maintenue" and "maintienne" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maintenue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maintienne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #126,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maintenue" and "maintienne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maintienne vs martienne". 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 #126,326 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