mamyvsmaurWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,543
“mamy” frequency rank
#23,932
“maur” frequency rank
67475
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mamy maur
Definition Variante de mamie. Fourmi.

Where the eye mixes mamy and maur

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

4 ch
mamy
4 ch
maur

Why the eye confuses mamy with maur

A purely visual mix-up. mamy (\ma.mi\) and maur (\mø.yːr\) 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 67475, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mamy is recorded at frequency rank #43,543, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.mi\. maur is at rank #23,932, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mø.yːr\.

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 67475, this pair ranks #63,295 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mamy vs maur

Shared letters: am. Private to "mamy": y. Private to "maur": ru.

"mamy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "maur" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mamyammy · mammy · mamyy · maym · mmamy · mmay
  • mauramur · maru · maurr · mmaur · muar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mamy" for "maur" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ma.mi\ versus \mø.yːr\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "mamy" vs "maur" - which ranks higher?
"maur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,932 in our French list, against #43,543 for "mamy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "mamy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,295 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mamy" and "maur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mamy vs memo". 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 #63,295 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