masvsmasonWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,694
“mas” frequency rank
#14,730
“mason” frequency rank
24424
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mas mason
Definition Ferme dans le midi de la France. Maçon.

Where the eye mixes mas and mason

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

3 ch
mas
5 ch
mason

Visual trap between mas and mason

A purely visual mix-up. mas (\mas\) and mason (\ˈmeɪ.sən\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “mas” sits inside “mason”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24424, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mas is recorded at frequency rank #9,694, classified as anoun, pronounced \mas\. mason is at rank #14,730, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈmeɪ.sən\.

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 24424, this pair ranks #346,720 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mas vs mason

Shared letters: ams. Private to "mas": -. Private to "mason": no.

"mas" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mason" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • masonamson · maosn · masno · masonn · mmason · msaon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mas" for "mason" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mas\ versus \ˈmeɪ.sən\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mas" or "mason"?
"mas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,694 in our French list, against #14,730 for "mason". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mason" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #346,720 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mas" and "mason" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manor vs mason". 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 #346,720 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