marblevsmarblesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#7,580
“marble” frequency rank
#22,737
“marbles” frequency rank
30317
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marble marbles
Definition A metamorphic rock of crystalline limestone. Any of several children's games played with small balls (made of marble or more commonly glass).

Letter map: marble vs marbles

Shared letters muted; letters that set marble and marbles apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

6 ch
marble
7 ch
marbles

Corpus notes: marble and marbles

marble and marbles 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 extra letter(s) - “marble” sits inside “marbles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30317, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marble is recorded at frequency rank #7,580, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɑː.bəl/. marbles is at rank #22,737, 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 30317, this pair ranks #355,571 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marble vs marbles

Shared letters: abelmr. Private to "marble": -. Private to "marbles": s.

"marble" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "marbles" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marbleamrble · mabrle · marbble · marbel · marblle · marlbe · marrble · mmarble
  • marblesamrbles · mabrles · marbbles · marbels · marbless · marblles · marblse · marlbes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marble" for "marbles" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “marble” sits inside “marbles”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "marble" vs "marbles" - which ranks higher?
"marble" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,580 in our English list, against #22,737 for "marbles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "marble" vs "marbles" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marble" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marbles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #355,571 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marble" and "marbles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marbles vs Marple". 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 #355,571 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