manevsminesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#47,441
“mane” frequency rank
#3,341
“mines” frequency rank
50782
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mane mines
Definition Crinière. Pluriel de mine.

Where the eye mixes mane and mines

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

4 ch
mane
5 ch
mines

Look-alike desk: mane vs mines

A purely visual mix-up. mane (\meɪn\) and mines (\min\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50782, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mane is recorded at frequency rank #47,441, classified as anoun, pronounced \meɪn\. mines is at rank #3,341, tagged as anoun, pronounced \min\.

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 50782, this pair ranks #160,029 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mane vs mines

Shared letters: emn. Private to "mane": a. Private to "mines": is.

"mane" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mane ← mmane · mnae
  • mines ← imnes · miness · minnes · minse · mmines · mnies

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mane" for "mines" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\meɪn\ versus \min\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "mane" or "mines" show up more?
"mines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,341 in our French list, against #47,441 for "mane". 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 "mane" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #160,029 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mane" and "mines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs mane". 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 #160,029 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