Which to use
“maintien” and “maintiens” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,273
- “maintien” frequency rank
- #23,929
- “maintiens” frequency rank
- 27202
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maintien | maintiens |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de maintenir. | Pluriel de maintien. |
Same sound, different letters: maintien vs maintiens
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. maintien runs 8 letters (CVVCCVVC) against maintiens's 9 (CVVCCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: maintien vs maintiens
This is the hard kind. maintien and maintiens are pronounced identically (\mɛ̃.tjɛ̃\) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “maintien” sits inside “maintiens”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27202, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maintien is recorded at frequency rank #3,273, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛ̃.tjɛ̃\. maintiens is at rank #23,929, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛ̃.tjɛ̃\.
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 27202, this pair ranks #330,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maintien vs maintiens
Shared letters: aeimnt. Private to "maintien": -. Private to "maintiens": s.
"maintien" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC · "maintiens" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "maintien" for "maintiens" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "maintien" or "maintiens" show up more?
What to do next
"maintien" and "maintiens" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "maintien" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maintiens" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #330,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maintien" and "maintiens" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maintienne vs maintiens". 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 #330,477 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.