Which to use
“majesté” is a noun and “modeste” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,049
- “majesté” frequency rank
- #5,156
- “modeste” frequency rank
- 10205
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | majesté | modeste |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Grandeur suprême ; caractère auguste qui imprime le respect. | Qui a de la retenue, de la modération, qui ne donne dans aucun excès. |
Where the eye mixes majesté and modeste
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. majesté and modeste follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: majesté vs modeste
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: majesté is \ma.ʒɛs.te\ while modeste is \mɔ.dɛst\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10205, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
majesté is recorded at frequency rank #5,049, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʒɛs.te\. modeste is at rank #5,156, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɔ.dɛst\.
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 10205, this pair ranks #413,833 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of majesté vs modeste
Shared letters: emst. Private to "majesté": ajé. Private to "modeste": do.
"majesté" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV · "modeste" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- modeste ← mdoeste · mmodeste · moddeste · modeset · modesste · modestte · modetse · modsete
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "majesté" for "modeste" ever safe?
Which is more common, "majesté" or "modeste"?
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 "majesté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "modeste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #413,833 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "majesté" and "modeste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "majesté vs majestic". 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 #413,833 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.