maistrevsmestreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#32,062
“maistre” frequency rank
#32,071
“mestre” frequency rank
64133
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maistre mestre
Definition Maître. Grand mât des bâtiments à voiles latines par opposition au mât de trinquet.

Letter map: maistre vs mestre

Shared letters muted; letters that set maistre and mestre apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. maistre runs 7 letters (CVVCCCV) against mestre's 6 (CVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
maistre
6 ch
mestre

Spelling & dictionary notes on maistre vs mestre

maistre and mestre are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64133, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maistre is recorded at frequency rank #32,062, classified as anoun. mestre is at rank #32,071, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛstʁ\.

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 64133, this pair ranks #78,527 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maistre vs mestre

Shared letters: emrst. Private to "maistre": ai. Private to "mestre": -.

"maistre" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV  ·  "mestre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maistreamistre · maisrte · maisstre · maister · maistrre · maisttre · maitsre · masitre
  • mestreemstre · mesrte · messtre · mester · mestrre · mesttre · metsre · mmestre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maistre" for "mestre" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "maistre" vs "mestre" - which ranks higher?
"maistre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,062 in our French list, against #32,071 for "mestre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "maistre" and "mestre".

  • Full dictionary entry for "maistre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mestre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #78,527 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maistre" and "mestre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mestre vs meutre". 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 #78,527 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