minivsminimaConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#2,371
“mini” frequency rank
#13,839
“minima” frequency rank
16210
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mini minima
Definition Minuscule, de très petite taille. La plus basse.

Letter map: mini vs minima

Shared letters muted; letters that set mini and minima apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
mini
6 ch
minima

Pair insight - mini / minima

mini and minima are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mini” sits inside “minima”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16210, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mini is recorded at frequency rank #2,371, classified as anadj, pronounced \mi.ni\. minima is at rank #13,839, tagged as anadj.

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 16210, this pair ranks #388,868 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mini vs minima

Shared letters: imn. Private to "mini": -. Private to "minima": a.

"mini" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "minima" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • miniimni · miin · minni · mmini · mnii
  • minimaimnima · miinma · miniam · minimma · minmia · minnima · mminima · mniima

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mini" for "minima" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mini” sits inside “minima”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "mini" or "minima" show up more?
"mini" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,371 in our French list, against #13,839 for "minima". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "mini" and "minima". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mini" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "minima" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,868 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mini" and "minima" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "minima vs minis". 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 #388,868 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