marevsmarqueWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#13,015
“mare” frequency rank
#47,747
“marque” frequency rank
60762
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mare marque
Definition An adult female horse. A brand of a manufactured product, especially of a motor car.

Where the eye mixes mare and marque

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mare
6 ch
marque

Visual trap between mare and marque

A purely visual mix-up. mare (/mɛə/) and marque (/ˈmɑː(ɹ)k/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60762, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mare is recorded at frequency rank #13,015, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɛə/. marque is at rank #47,747, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɑː(ɹ)k/.

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 60762, this pair ranks #98,222 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mare vs marque

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "mare": -. Private to "marque": qu.

"mare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "marque" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mareamre · maer · marre · mmare · mrae
  • marqueamrque · maqrue · marqeu · marqque · marrque · maruqe · mmarque · mraque

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mare" for "marque" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/mɛə/ versus /ˈmɑː(ɹ)k/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mare" or "marque"?
"mare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,015 in our English list, against #47,747 for "marque". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "mare" and "marque" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #98,222 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mare" and "marque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Marne vs marque". 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 #98,222 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