MardervsmarodenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Marder is a noun, maroden is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Marder” is a noun and “maroden” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,273
“Marder” frequency rank
#49,881
“maroden” frequency rank
88154
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Marder maroden
Definition eine Familie (Mustelidae) hundeartiger Raubtiere Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs marode

Where the eye mixes Marder and maroden

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

6 ch
Marder
7 ch
maroden

Visual trap between Marder and maroden

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Marder is [ˈmaʁdɐ] while maroden is [maˈʁoːdn̩]. 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 88154, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Marder is recorded at frequency rank #38,273, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈmaʁdɐ]. maroden is at rank #49,881, tagged as anadj, pronounced [maˈʁoːdn̩].

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 88154, this pair ranks #71,654 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Marder vs maroden

Shared letters: ademr. Private to "Marder": -. Private to "maroden": no.

"Marder" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "maroden" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Marder ← amrder · madrer · mardder · marderr · mardre · maredr · marrder · mmarder
  • maroden ← amroden · maorden · mardoen · marodden · marodenn · marodne · maroedn · marroden

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Marder" and "maroden" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Marder" is a noun and "maroden" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Marder" vs "maroden" - which ranks higher?
"Marder" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,273 in our German list, against #49,881 for "maroden". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "Marder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maroden" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,654 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Marder" and "maroden" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maroden vs Moden". 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 #71,654 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list