mignonvsminoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,861
“mignon” frequency rank
#45,737
“mino” frequency rank
49598
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mignon mino
Definition Qui, dans son apparence menue, offre de la grâce et de la gentillesse. Minorité.

Where the eye mixes mignon and mino

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

6 ch
mignon
4 ch
mino

Visual trap between mignon and mino

A purely visual mix-up. mignon (\mi.ɲɔ̃\) and mino (\mi.no\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mignon is recorded at frequency rank #3,861, classified as anadj, pronounced \mi.ɲɔ̃\. mino is at rank #45,737, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mi.no\.

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 49598, this pair ranks #169,333 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mignon vs mino

Shared letters: imno. Private to "mignon": g. Private to "mino": -.

"mignon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mino" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mignonimgnon · mginon · miggnon · mignno · mignnon · mignonn · migonn · mingon
  • minoimno · minno · mion · mmino · mnio

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mignon" and "mino" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mi.ɲɔ̃\ versus \mi.no\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "mignon" or "mino" show up more?
"mignon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,861 in our French list, against #45,737 for "mino". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mignon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mino" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #169,333 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mignon" and "mino" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mino vs mito". 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 #169,333 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