maistrevsministreWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,062
“maistre” frequency rank
#434
“ministre” frequency rank
32496
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maistre ministre
Definition Maître. Personne chargée de remplir une fonction pour le compte d’autrui.

Letter map: maistre vs ministre

Shared letters muted; letters that set maistre and ministre apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. maistre runs 7 letters (CVVCCCV) against ministre's 8 (CVCVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
maistre
8 ch
ministre

Spelling & dictionary notes on maistre vs ministre

maistre and ministre 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 32496, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maistre is recorded at frequency rank #32,062, classified as anoun. ministre is at rank #434, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.nistʁ\.

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 32496, this pair ranks #296,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maistre vs ministre

Shared letters: eimrst. Private to "maistre": a. Private to "ministre": n.

"maistre" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV  ·  "ministre" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maistreamistre · maisrte · maisstre · maister · maistrre · maisttre · maitsre · masitre
  • ministreimnistre · miinstre · minisrte · minisstre · ministrre · ministtre · minitsre · minnistre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maistre" and "ministre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
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 "ministre" - which ranks higher?
"ministre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #434 in our French list, against #32,062 for "maistre". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "maistre" vs "ministre" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maistre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ministre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #296,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maistre" and "ministre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mainte vs maistre". 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 #296,876 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