maintsvsmintConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#37,418
“maints” frequency rank
#34,193
“mint” frequency rank
71611
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maints mint
Definition Masculin pluriel de maint. Menthe.

Where the eye mixes maints and mint

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. maints runs 6 letters (CVVCCC) against mint's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
maints
4 ch
mint

Visual trap between maints and mint

A purely visual mix-up. maints (\mɛ̃\) and mint (\mɪnt\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71611, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maints is recorded at frequency rank #37,418, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɛ̃\. mint is at rank #34,193, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɪnt\.

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 71611, this pair ranks #46,960 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maints vs mint

Shared letters: imnt. Private to "maints": as. Private to "mint": -.

"maints" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC  ·  "mint" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maints ← amints · mainnts · mainst · maintss · maintts · maitns · manits · miants
  • mint ← imnt · minnt · mintt · mitn · mmint · mnit

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maints" and "mint" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mɛ̃\ versus \mɪnt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "maints" or "mint"?
"mint" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,193 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 "maints" and "mint" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maints" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mint" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,960 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maints" and "mint" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mint vs mito". 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 #46,960 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