mentivsmentonWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#8,127
“menti” frequency rank
#8,737
“menton” frequency rank
16864
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature menti menton
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de mentir. Partie inférieure de la face située au-dessous de la lèvre inférieure, et qui, bien apparente chez l’être humain, diminue chez le singe, et disparaît à peu près complètement chez les animaux à museau allongé.

Where the eye mixes menti and menton

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
menti
6 ch
menton

Why the eye confuses menti with menton

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: menti is \mɑ̃.ti\ while menton is \mɑ̃.tɔ̃\. 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 16864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

menti is recorded at frequency rank #8,127, classified as averb, pronounced \mɑ̃.ti\. menton is at rank #8,737, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃.tɔ̃\.

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 16864, this pair ranks #385,900 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of menti vs menton

Shared letters: emnt. Private to "menti": i. Private to "menton": o.

"menti" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "menton" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mentiemnti · menit · mennti · mentti · metni · mmenti · mneti
  • mentonemnton · mennton · menotn · mentno · mentonn · mentton · metnon · mmenton

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "menti" for "menton" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "menti" is a verb and "menton" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "menti" or "menton" show up more?
"menti" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,127 in our French list, against #8,737 for "menton". 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 "menti" and "menton" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "menti" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "menton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #385,900 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "menti" and "menton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mentant vs menton". 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 #385,900 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