maîtrevsmigréTell them apart

Quick tell: maître is a noun, migré is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maître” is a noun and “migré” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#946
“maître” frequency rank
#37,924
“migré” frequency rank
38870
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maître migré
Definition Personne qui exerce son autorité. Participe passé masculin singulier de migrer.

Where the eye mixes maître and migré

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. maître runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against migré's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
maître
5 ch
migré

Visual trap between maître and migré

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maître is \mɛtʁ\ while migré is \mi.ɡʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38870, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maître is recorded at frequency rank #946, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛtʁ\. migré is at rank #37,924, tagged as averb, pronounced \mi.ɡʁe\.

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 38870, this pair ranks #252,219 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maître vs migré

Shared letters: mr. Private to "maître": aetî. Private to "migré": gié.

"maître" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "migré" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maître" and "migré" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maître" is a noun and "migré" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maître" vs "migré" - which ranks higher?
"maître" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #946 in our French list, against #37,924 for "migré". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maître" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "migré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #252,219 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maître" and "migré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magret vs migré". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #252,219 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