Which to use
“minerais” is a noun and “minéraux” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #23,610
- “minerais” frequency rank
- #10,198
- “minéraux” frequency rank
- 33808
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | minerais | minéraux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de minerai. | Masculin pluriel de minéral. |
Where the eye mixes minerais and minéraux
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. minerais and minéraux follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: minerais vs minéraux
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: minerais is \min.ʁɛ\ while minéraux is \mi.ne.ʁo\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
minerais is recorded at frequency rank #23,610, classified as anoun, pronounced \min.ʁɛ\. minéraux is at rank #10,198, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mi.ne.ʁo\.
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 33808, this pair ranks #288,134 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of minerais vs minéraux
Shared letters: aimnr. Private to "minerais": es. Private to "minéraux": uxé.
"minerais" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC · "minéraux" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- minerais ← imnerais · mienrais · minearis · mineraiss · minerasi · minerias · minerrais · minnerais
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "minerais" for "minéraux" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "minerais" or "minéraux" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "minerais" and "minéraux" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "minerais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "minéraux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #288,134 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "minerais" and "minéraux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mangerais vs minerais". 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 #288,134 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.