mangesvsmanteWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#10,901
“manges” frequency rank
#40,857
“mante” frequency rank
51758
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manges mante
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de manger. Vêtement de femme, ample et sans manches, qui se porte par dessus les autres vêtements, par temps froids.

Where the eye mixes manges and mante

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. manges runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against mante's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
manges
5 ch
mante

Why the eye confuses manges with mante

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: manges is \mɑ̃ʒ\ while mante is \mɑ̃t\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51758, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manges is recorded at frequency rank #10,901, classified as averb, pronounced \mɑ̃ʒ\. mante is at rank #40,857, 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 51758, this pair ranks #152,684 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of manges vs mante

Shared letters: aemn. Private to "manges": gs. Private to "mante": t.

"manges" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mante" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manges ← amnges · magnes · manegs · mangess · mangges · mangse · mannges · mmanges
  • mante ← amnte · mannte · mantte · matne · mmante · mnate

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manges" for "mante" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "manges" is a verb and "mante" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "manges" or "mante" show up more?
"manges" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,901 in our French list, against #40,857 for "mante". 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 "manges" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mante" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #152,684 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manges" and "mante" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manor vs mante". 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 #152,684 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