Which to use
“miner” is a verb and “minerai” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,047
- “miner” frequency rank
- #11,806
- “minerai” frequency rank
- 36853
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | miner | minerai |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Creuser par-dessous un terrain, un rocher pour provoquer un effondrement ou pour y placer une mine. | Composé métallique tel qu’on le retire de la mine. |
Where the eye mixes miner and minerai
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. miner runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against minerai's 7 (CVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between miner and minerai
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: miner is \mi.ne\ while minerai is \min.ʁɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “miner” sits inside “minerai”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36853, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
miner is recorded at frequency rank #25,047, classified as averb, pronounced \mi.ne\. minerai is at rank #11,806, tagged as anoun, pronounced \min.ʁɛ\.
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 36853, this pair ranks #266,690 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of miner vs minerai
Shared letters: eimnr. Private to "miner": -. Private to "minerai": a.
"miner" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "minerai" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "miner" for "minerai" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "miner" or "minerai" show up more?
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 "miner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "minerai" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #266,690 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "miner" and "minerai" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Meier vs miner". 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 #266,690 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.