mincesvsminceurWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: minces is a adjective, minceur is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“minces” is an adjective and “minceur” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,939
“minces” frequency rank
#25,046
“minceur” frequency rank
40985
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature minces minceur
Definition Pluriel de mince. Qualité de ce qui est mince.

Where the eye mixes minces and minceur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
minces
7 ch
minceur

Visual trap between minces and minceur

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: minces is \mɛ̃s\ while minceur is \mɛ̃.sœʁ\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40985, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

minces is recorded at frequency rank #15,939, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɛ̃s\. minceur is at rank #25,046, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛ̃.sœʁ\.

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 40985, this pair ranks #236,450 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of minces vs minceur

Shared letters: ceimn. Private to "minces": s. Private to "minceur": ru.

"minces" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "minceur" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mincesimnces · micnes · mincces · mincess · mincse · minecs · minnces · mminces
  • minceurimnceur · micneur · mincceur · minceru · minceurr · mincuer · minecur · minnceur

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "minces" and "minceur" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "minces" is an adjective and "minceur" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "minces" or "minceur" show up more?
"minces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,939 in our French list, against #25,046 for "minceur". 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 "minces" and "minceur" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "minces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "minceur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #236,450 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "minces" and "minceur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "minces vs minois". 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 #236,450 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