mangervsmangezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#791
“manger” frequency rank
#13,424
“mangez” frequency rank
14215
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manger mangez
Definition Mâcher et avaler un aliment dans le but de se nourrir. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de manger.

Same sound, different letters: manger vs mangez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. manger and mangez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
manger
6 ch
mangez

Homophone desk: manger vs mangez

This is the hard kind. manger and mangez are pronounced identically (\mɑ̃.ʒe\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - r in “manger” becomes z in “mangez”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14215, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manger is recorded at frequency rank #791, classified as averb, pronounced \mɑ̃.ʒe\. mangez is at rank #13,424, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɑ̃.ʒe\.

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 14215, this pair ranks #397,660 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of manger vs mangez

Shared letters: aegmn. Private to "manger": r. Private to "mangez": z.

"manger" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mangez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mangeramnger · magner · manegr · mangerr · mangger · mangre · mannger · mmanger
  • mangezamngez · magnez · manegz · mangezz · manggez · mangze · manngez · mmangez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manger" for "mangez" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɑ̃.ʒe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "manger" vs "mangez" - which ranks higher?
"manger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #791 in our French list, against #13,424 for "mangez". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

"manger" and "mangez" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "manger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mangez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #397,660 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manger" and "mangez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mane vs mangez". 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 #397,660 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