mairiesvsmoitiésConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#18,527
“mairies” frequency rank
#41,902
“moitiés” frequency rank
60429
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mairies moitiés
Definition Pluriel de mairie. Pluriel de moitié.

Where the eye mixes mairies and moitiés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mairies and moitiés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
mairies
7 ch
moitiés

Why the eye confuses mairies with moitiés

A purely visual mix-up. mairies (\me.ʁi\) and moitiés (\mwa.tje\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60429, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mairies is recorded at frequency rank #18,527, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.ʁi\. moitiés is at rank #41,902, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mwa.tje\.

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 60429, this pair ranks #97,638 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mairies vs moitiés

Shared letters: ims. Private to "mairies": aer. Private to "moitiés": oté.

"mairies" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC  ·  "moitiés" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mairies ← amiries · maiires · maireis · mairiess · mairise · mairries · mariies · miaries

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mairies" and "moitiés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\me.ʁi\ versus \mwa.tje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mairies" or "moitiés"?
"mairies" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,527 in our French list, against #41,902 for "moitiés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mairies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moitiés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #97,638 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mairies" and "moitiés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moisie vs moitiés". 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 #97,638 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