Which to use
“Marine” is a noun and “marines” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,393
- “Marine” frequency rank
- #33,182
- “marines” frequency rank
- 38575
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Marine | marines |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | die zur Seekriegsführung bestimmten Streitkräfte eines Staates | Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs marin |
Where the eye mixes Marine and marines
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. Marine runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against marines's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between Marine and marines
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Marine is [maˈʁiːnə] while marines is [maˈʁiːnəs]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “Marine” sits inside “marines”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38575, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Marine is recorded at frequency rank #5,393, classified as anoun, pronounced [maˈʁiːnə]. marines is at rank #33,182, tagged as anadj, pronounced [maˈʁiːnəs].
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 38575, this pair ranks #1,560,313 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of Marine vs marines
Shared letters: aeimnr. Private to "Marine": -. Private to "marines": s.
"Marine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "marines" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "Marine" and "marines" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "Marine" or "marines"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "Marine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,560,313 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Marine" and "marines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "machines vs marines". 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 #1,560,313 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.