minsvsmoisTell them apart

Which to use

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

#38,919
“mins” frequency rank
#184
“mois” frequency rank
39103
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mins mois
Definition Pluriel de min. Chacune des douze parties de l’année, dont chacune contient trente ou trente et un jours, excepté la seconde (février), qui est de vingt-huit jours dans les années ordinaires, et de vingt-neuf dans les années bissextiles.

Where the eye mixes mins and mois

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mins
4 ch
mois

Look-alike desk: mins vs mois

A purely visual mix-up. mins (\min\) and mois (\mwa\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39103, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mins is recorded at frequency rank #38,919, classified as anoun, pronounced \min\. mois is at rank #184, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mwa\.

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 39103, this pair ranks #250,493 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mins vs mois

Shared letters: ims. Private to "mins": n. Private to "mois": o.

"mins" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mois" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • minsimns · minns · minss · misn · mmins · mnis
  • moismios · mmois · moiss · mosi

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mins" and "mois" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\min\ versus \mwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "mins" or "mois" show up more?
"mois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #184 in our French list, against #38,919 for "mins". 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 "mins" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mois" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #250,493 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mins" and "mois" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mins vs mito". 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 #250,493 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