mantevsmententWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#40,857
“mante” frequency rank
#14,734
“mentent” frequency rank
55591
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mante mentent
Definition Vêtement de femme, ample et sans manches, qui se porte par dessus les autres vêtements, par temps froids. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de mentir.

Same sound, different letters: mante vs mentent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. mante runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against mentent's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
mante
7 ch
mentent

Ear matches; page differs - mante and mentent

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: mante and mentent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mɑ̃t\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55591, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mante is recorded at frequency rank #40,857, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃t\. mentent is at rank #14,734, tagged as averb, 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 55591, this pair ranks #126,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mante vs mentent

Shared letters: emnt. Private to "mante": a. Private to "mentent": -.

"mante" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "mentent" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mante ← amnte · mannte · mantte · matne · mmante · mnate
  • mentent ← emntent · menetnt · menntent · mentennt · mententt · mentetn · mentnet · menttent

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mante" and "mentent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mante" is a noun and "mentent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "mante" or "mentent" show up more?
"mentent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,734 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.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "mante" / "mentent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mante" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mentent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #126,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mante" and "mentent" 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 #126,512 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