mancevsmazeTell them apart

Quick tell: mance is a noun, maze is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mance” is a noun and “maze” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,727
“mance” frequency rank
#40,371
“maze” frequency rank
86098
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mance maze
Definition Manche d’un vêtement. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de mazer.

Where the eye mixes mance and maze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. mance runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against maze's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
mance
4 ch
maze

Visual trap between mance and maze

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mance is \ˈman.t͡ʃə\ while maze is \maz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86098, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mance is recorded at frequency rank #45,727, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈman.t͡ʃə\. maze is at rank #40,371, tagged as averb, pronounced \maz\.

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 86098, this pair ranks #10,231 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mance vs maze

Shared letters: aem. Private to "mance": cn. Private to "maze": z.

"mance" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "maze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mance ← amnce · macne · mancce · manec · mannce · mmance · mnace
  • maze ← amze · maez · mazze · mmaze · mzae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mance" for "maze" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mance" is a noun and "maze" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mance" or "maze"?
"maze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,371 in our French list, against #45,727 for "mance". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,231 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mance" and "maze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mance vs manor". 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 #10,231 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