Which to use
“minus” is a noun and “moins” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #32,073
- “minus” frequency rank
- #118
- “moins” frequency rank
- 32191
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | minus | moins |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Individu aux capacités intellectuelles limitées. | Comparatif de peu. Servant à marquer l’infériorité d’une personne ou d’une chose, comparée à une autre ou à elle-même sous quelque rapport de qualité, de quantité, d’action, etc. |
Where the eye mixes minus and moins
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: minus vs moins
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: minus is \mi.nys\ while moins is \mwɛ̃\. 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 adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32191, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
minus is recorded at frequency rank #32,073, classified as anoun, pronounced \mi.nys\. moins is at rank #118, tagged as anadv, pronounced \mwɛ̃\.
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 32191, this pair ranks #298,909 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of minus vs moins
Shared letters: imns. Private to "minus": u. Private to "moins": o.
"minus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "moins" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "minus" for "moins" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "minus" or "moins" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "minus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "moins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #298,909 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "minus" and "moins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "minois vs minus". 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 #298,909 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.