Which to use
“maintes” is an adjective and “malines” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,028
- “maintes” frequency rank
- #19,589
- “malines” frequency rank
- 29617
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maintes | malines |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin pluriel de maint. | Dentelle très fine qui s’est fabriquée originairement dans la ville de Malines, en Flandre. |
Where the eye mixes maintes and malines
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. maintes (CVVCCVC) and malines (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: maintes vs malines
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maintes is \mɛ̃t\ while malines is \ma.lin\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29617, 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\. malines is at rank #19,589, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.lin\.
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 29617, this pair ranks #315,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maintes vs malines
Shared letters: aeimns. Private to "maintes": t. Private to "malines": l.
"maintes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC · "malines" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "maintes" and "malines" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "maintes" or "malines"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "maintes" and "malines" 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 "malines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #315,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maintes" and "malines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malines vs manies". 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 #315,551 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.