majvsmsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: maj is a noun, ms is a symbol, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maj” is a noun and “ms” is a symbol - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,249
“maj” frequency rank
#6,112
“ms” frequency rank
24361
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maj ms
Definition Major. Symbole de la milliseconde, unité de mesure de temps du Système international (SI), valant 10⁻³ seconde.

Letter map: maj vs ms

Shared letters muted; letters that set maj and ms apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
maj
2 ch
ms

Part-of-speech tell for maj / ms

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maj is anoun and msasymbol. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24361, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maj is recorded at frequency rank #18,249, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʒ\. ms is at rank #6,112, tagged as asymbol.

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 24361, this pair ranks #347,039 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maj vs ms

Shared letters: m. Private to "maj": aj. Private to "ms": s.

"maj" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "ms" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maj" for "ms" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maj" is a noun and "ms" a symbol, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "maj" or "ms" show up more?
"ms" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,112 in our French list, against #18,249 for "maj". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "maj" vs "ms" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maj" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ms" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #347,039 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maj" and "ms" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maj vs MWh". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #347,039 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