montaisvsmontésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,234
“montais” frequency rank
#11,807
“montés” frequency rank
61041
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature montais montés
Definition Relatif à Mont, commune française située dans le département des Hautes-Pyrénées. Masculin pluriel de monté.

Where the eye mixes montais and montés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. montais runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against montés's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
montais
6 ch
montés

Visual trap between montais and montés

A purely visual mix-up. montais (\mɔ̃.tɛ\) and montés (\mɔ̃.te\) 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 61041, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

montais is recorded at frequency rank #49,234, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɔ̃.tɛ\. montés is at rank #11,807, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɔ̃.te\.

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 61041, this pair ranks #94,397 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of montais vs montés

Shared letters: mnost. Private to "montais": ai. Private to "montés": é.

"montais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "montés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • montais ← mmontais · mnotais · monatis · monntais · montaiss · montasi · montias · monttais

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "montais" and "montés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɔ̃.tɛ\ versus \mɔ̃.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "montais" vs "montés" - which ranks higher?
"montés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,807 in our French list, against #49,234 for "montais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "montais" and "montés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "montais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "montés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,397 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "montais" and "montés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mondains vs montais". 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 #94,397 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