minutevsminutieWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,778
“minute” frequency rank
#36,497
“minutie” frequency rank
38275
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature minute minutie
Definition Unité de mesure de temps, compatible avec le Système international, et qui compte soixante secondes. Son symbole est min. Chose de peu d’importance.

Where the eye mixes minute and minutie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. minute runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against minutie's 7 (CVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
minute
7 ch
minutie

Visual trap between minute and minutie

A purely visual mix-up. minute (\mi.nyt\) and minutie (\mi.ny.si\) 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 38275, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

minute is recorded at frequency rank #1,778, classified as anoun, pronounced \mi.nyt\. minutie is at rank #36,497, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.ny.si\.

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 38275, this pair ranks #256,422 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of minute vs minutie

Shared letters: eimntu. Private to "minute": -. Private to "minutie": -.

"minute" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "minutie" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • minuteimnute · minnute · mintue · minuet · minutte · miunte · mminute · mniute
  • minutieimnutie · minnutie · mintuie · minuite · minutei · minuttie · miuntie · mminutie

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "minute" and "minutie" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mi.nyt\ versus \mi.ny.si\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "minute" or "minutie" show up more?
"minute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,778 in our French list, against #36,497 for "minutie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "minute" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "minutie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #256,422 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "minute" and "minutie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "minette vs minutie". 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 #256,422 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