makivsminiWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: maki is a noun, mini is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maki” is a noun and “mini” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,449
“maki” frequency rank
#2,371
“mini” frequency rank
44820
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maki mini
Definition Espèce de la famille des lémuridés vivant à Madagascar, à museau allongé, au pelage épais et laineux et à la queue longue et touffue. Minuscule, de très petite taille.

Where the eye mixes maki and mini

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
maki
4 ch
mini

Look-alike desk: maki vs mini

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maki is \ma.ki\ while mini is \mi.ni\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 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 44820, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maki is recorded at frequency rank #42,449, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ki\. mini is at rank #2,371, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mi.ni\.

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 44820, this pair ranks #207,568 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maki vs mini

Shared letters: im. Private to "maki": ak. Private to "mini": n.

"maki" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mini" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • makiamki · maik · makki · mkai · mmaki
  • miniimni · miin · minni · mmini · mnii

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maki" and "mini" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maki" is a noun and "mini" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "maki" or "mini" show up more?
"mini" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,371 in our French list, against #42,449 for "maki". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maki" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mini" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #207,568 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maki" and "mini" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs maki". 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 #207,568 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