Which to use
“malles” and “mantes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,281
- “malles” frequency rank
- #21,689
- “mantes” frequency rank
- 67970
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malles | mantes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de malle. | Pluriel de mante. |
Where the eye mixes malles and mantes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. malles and mantes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses malles with mantes
A purely visual mix-up. malles (\mal\) and mantes (\mɑ̃t\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67970, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malles is recorded at frequency rank #46,281, classified as anoun, pronounced \mal\. mantes is at rank #21,689, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃t\.
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 67970, this pair ranks #61,174 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of malles vs mantes
Shared letters: aems. Private to "malles": l. Private to "mantes": nt.
"malles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "mantes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "malles" and "mantes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "malles" or "mantes"?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "malles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mantes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #61,174 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malles" and "mantes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malles vs manies". 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 #61,174 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.