Which to use
“maistre” and “misère” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #32,062
- “maistre” frequency rank
- #4,354
- “misère” frequency rank
- 36416
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maistre | misère |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Maître. | Condition, état de celui qui inspire la pitié. |
Letter map: maistre vs misère
Shared letters muted; letters that set maistre and misère apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. maistre runs 7 letters (CVVCCCV) against misère's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Corpus notes: maistre and misère
maistre and misère 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 36416, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maistre is recorded at frequency rank #32,062, classified as anoun. misère is at rank #4,354, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.zɛʁ\.
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 36416, this pair ranks #269,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maistre vs misère
Shared letters: eimrs. Private to "maistre": at. Private to "misère": è.
"maistre" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV · "misère" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- maistre ← amistre · maisrte · maisstre · maister · maistrre · maisttre · maitsre · masitre
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "maistre" for "misère" ever safe?
Frequency check: "maistre" vs "misère" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "maistre" and "misère".
- Full dictionary entry for "maistre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "misère" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #269,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maistre" and "misère" 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 #269,766 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.