maraisvsmarginWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#41,753
“marais” frequency rank
#4,537
“margin” frequency rank
46290
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marais margin
Definition A marsh; a marshy area, one intermittently covered with water, particularly in Louisiana, or in other French-speaking areas. The edge of the paper, typically left blank when printing but sometimes used for annotations etc.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set marais and margin apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
marais
6 ch
margin

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

marais and margin 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46290, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marais is recorded at frequency rank #41,753, classified as anoun. margin is at rank #4,537, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɑː.d͡ʒɪn/.

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 46290, this pair ranks #213,169 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marais vs margin

Shared letters: aimr. Private to "marais": s. Private to "margin": gn.

"marais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "margin" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maraisamrais · maaris · maraiss · marasi · marias · marrais · mmarais · mraais
  • marginamrgin · magrin · marggin · marginn · margni · marign · marrgin · mmargin

Frequency comparison

marais#41,753
margin#4,537

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marais" and "margin" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "marais" or "margin"?
"margin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,537 in our English list, against #41,753 for "marais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering marais vs margin

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “marais” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list