madgevsmargWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“madge” and “marg” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#34,174
“madge” frequency rank
#44,926
“marg” frequency rank
79100
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature madge marg
Definition The barn owl. Clipping of margarine.

Letter map: madge vs marg

Shared letters muted; letters that set madge and marg apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. madge runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against marg's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
madge
4 ch
marg

Spelling & dictionary notes on madge vs marg

madge and marg are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79100, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

madge is recorded at frequency rank #34,174, classified as anoun, pronounced /mæd͡ʒ/. marg is at rank #44,926, tagged as anoun.

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 79100, this pair ranks #22,901 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of madge vs marg

Shared letters: agm. Private to "madge": de. Private to "marg": r.

"madge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "marg" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • madge ← amdge · maddge · madeg · madgge · magde · mdage · mmadge
  • marg ← amrg · magr · margg · marrg · mmarg · mrag

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "madge" for "marg" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "madge" vs "marg" - which ranks higher?
"madge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,174 in our English list, against #44,926 for "marg". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "madge" vs "marg" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "madge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marg" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,901 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "madge" and "marg" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marg vs Moog". 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 #22,901 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list