minesvsminoisConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#3,341
“mines” frequency rank
#49,223
“minois” frequency rank
52564
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mines minois
Definition Pluriel de mine. Visage ; face.

Where the eye mixes mines and minois

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
mines
6 ch
minois

Look-alike desk: mines vs minois

A purely visual mix-up. mines (\min\) and minois (\mi.nwa\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52564, 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\. minois is at rank #49,223, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.nwa\.

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 52564, this pair ranks #146,855 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mines vs minois

Shared letters: imns. Private to "mines": e. Private to "minois": o.

"mines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "minois" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • minesimnes · miness · minnes · minse · mmines · mnies
  • minoisimnois · minios · minnois · minoiss · minosi · mionis · mminois · mniois

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mines" and "minois" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\min\ versus \mi.nwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mines" or "minois"?
"mines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,341 in our French list, against #49,223 for "minois". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "mines" and "minois" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "minois" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,855 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mines" and "minois" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mino 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 #146,855 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