minesvsminisConfusable pair

Quick tell: mines is a noun, minis is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#3,341
“mines” frequency rank
#40,868
“minis” frequency rank
44209
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mines minis
Definition Pluriel de mine. Pluriel de mini.

Where the eye mixes mines and minis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mines and minis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
mines
5 ch
minis

Visual trap between mines and minis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mines is \min\ while minis is \mi.ni\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “mines” becomes i in “minis”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44209, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mines is recorded at frequency rank #3,341, classified as anoun, pronounced \min\. minis is at rank #40,868, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mi.ni\.

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 44209, this pair ranks #212,209 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mines vs minis

Shared letters: imns. Private to "mines": e. Private to "minis": -.

"mines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "minis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mines ← imnes · miness · minnes · minse · mmines · mnies
  • minis ← imnis · miins · miniss · minnis · minsi · mminis · mniis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mines" for "minis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mines" is a noun and "minis" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mines" or "minis"?
"mines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,341 in our French list, against #40,868 for "minis". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "minis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #212,209 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mines" and "minis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "minis 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 #212,209 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