Which to use
“misère” is a noun and “mises” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,354
- “misère” frequency rank
- #2,485
- “mises” frequency rank
- 6839
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | misère | mises |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Condition, état de celui qui inspire la pitié. | Féminin pluriel de mise. |
Where the eye mixes misère and mises
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. misère runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against mises's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: misère vs mises
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: misère is \mi.zɛʁ\ while mises is \miz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
misère is recorded at frequency rank #4,354, classified as anoun, pronounced \mi.zɛʁ\. mises is at rank #2,485, tagged as anadj, pronounced \miz\.
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 6839, this pair ranks #425,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of misère vs mises
Shared letters: eims. Private to "misère": rè. Private to "mises": -.
"misère" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "mises" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- mises ← imses · miess · misess · misses · mmises · msies
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "misère" for "mises" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "misère" or "mises" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "misère" and "mises" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "misère" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mises" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #425,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "misère" and "mises" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "misère vs miséreux". 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 #425,063 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.