Which to use
“maison” is a noun and “Masson” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #235
- “maison” frequency rank
- #15,935
- “Masson” frequency rank
- 16170
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maison | Masson |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bâtiment servant de logis, d’habitation, de demeure. | Nom de famille français. |
Where the eye mixes maison and Masson
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maison is \me.zɔ̃\ while Masson is \ma.sɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - i in “maison” becomes s in “Masson”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16170, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maison is recorded at frequency rank #235, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.zɔ̃\. Masson is at rank #15,935, tagged as aname, pronounced \ma.sɔ̃\.
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 16170, this pair ranks #389,053 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of maison vs Masson
Shared letters: amnos. Private to "maison": i. Private to "Masson": -.
"maison" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "Masson" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC