marisvsmisWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#13,002
“maris” frequency rank
#339
“mis” frequency rank
13341
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maris mis
Definition Pluriel de mari. Participe passé masculin de mettre.

Where the eye mixes maris and mis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
maris
3 ch
mis

Look-alike desk: maris vs mis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maris is \ma.ʁi\ while mis is \mi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 13341, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maris is recorded at frequency rank #13,002, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁi\. mis is at rank #339, tagged as averb, pronounced \mi\.

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 13341, this pair ranks #401,411 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maris vs mis

Shared letters: ims. Private to "maris": ar. Private to "mis": -.

"maris" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "mis" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marisamris · mairs · mariss · marris · marsi · mmaris · mrais

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maris" for "mis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maris" is a noun and "mis" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maris" vs "mis" - which ranks higher?
"mis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #339 in our French list, against #13,002 for "maris". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "maris" and "mis" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maris" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #401,411 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maris" and "mis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs maris". 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 #401,411 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