maîtrevsmoitiéConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#946
“maître” frequency rank
#849
“moitié” frequency rank
1795
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maître moitié
Definition Personne qui exerce son autorité. L’une des parties d’un tout divisé, partagé également en deux.

Where the eye mixes maître and moitié

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. maître (CVVCCV) and moitié (CVVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
maître
6 ch
moitié

Look-alike desk: maître vs moitié

A purely visual mix-up. maître (\mɛtʁ\) and moitié (\mwa.tje\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1795, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maître is recorded at frequency rank #946, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛtʁ\. moitié is at rank #849, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mwa.tje\.

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 1795, this pair ranks #437,387 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maître vs moitié

Shared letters: mt. Private to "maître": aerî. Private to "moitié": ioé.

"maître" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "moitié" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maître" and "moitié" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɛtʁ\ versus \mwa.tje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "maître" vs "moitié" - which ranks higher?
"moitié" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #849 in our French list, against #946 for "maître". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "maître" and "moitié" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maître" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moitié" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #437,387 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maître" and "moitié" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moisie vs moitié". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #437,387 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