maintesvsmaintsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#10,028
“maintes” frequency rank
#37,418
“maints” frequency rank
47446
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maintes maints
Definition Féminin pluriel de maint. Masculin pluriel de maint.

Where the eye mixes maintes and maints

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. maintes runs 7 letters (CVVCCVC) against maints's 6 (CVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
maintes
6 ch
maints

Visual trap between maintes and maints

A purely visual mix-up. maintes (\mɛ̃t\) and maints (\mɛ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47446, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maintes is recorded at frequency rank #10,028, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɛ̃t\. maints is at rank #37,418, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɛ̃\.

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 47446, this pair ranks #186,860 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maintes vs maints

Shared letters: aimnst. Private to "maintes": e. Private to "maints": -.

"maintes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "maints" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maintes ← amintes · mainets · mainntes · maintess · maintse · mainttes · maitnes · manites
  • maints ← amints · mainnts · mainst · maintss · maintts · maitns · manits · miants

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maintes" and "maints" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɛ̃t\ versus \mɛ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "maintes" or "maints" show up more?
"maintes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,028 in our French list, against #37,418 for "maints". 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 "maintes" and "maints" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maintes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maints" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,860 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maintes" and "maints" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mainte vs maints". 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 #186,860 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