minvsminorWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#2,135
“min” frequency rank
#37,926
“minor” frequency rank
40061
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature min minor
Definition Langue chinoise parlées dans les provinces du Fujian, du Guangdong et du Hainan. Par opposition au major d’une classe ou d’une promotion, celui des élèves qui a les plus mauvaises notes, le dernier de la classe.

Where the eye mixes min and minor

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

3 ch
min
5 ch
minor

Visual trap between min and minor

A purely visual mix-up. min (\min\) and minor (\mi.nɔʁ\) 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) - “min” sits inside “minor”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40061, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

min is recorded at frequency rank #2,135, classified as anoun, pronounced \min\. minor is at rank #37,926, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.nɔʁ\.

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 40061, this pair ranks #243,350 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of min vs minor

Shared letters: imn. Private to "min": -. Private to "minor": or.

"min" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "minor" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • minorimnor · minnor · minorr · minro · mionr · mminor · mnior

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "min" for "minor" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\min\ versus \mi.nɔʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "min" or "minor"?
"min" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,135 in our French list, against #37,926 for "minor". 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 "min" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "minor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #243,350 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "min" and "minor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "minor 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 #243,350 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