margevsMargeryWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: marge is a noun, Margery is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“marge” is a noun and “Margery” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,155
“marge” frequency rank
#43,774
“Margery” frequency rank
69929
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marge Margery
Definition Margin; edge; brink or verge. A medieval vernacular form of Margaret, A female given name from Ancient Greek.

Letter map: marge vs Margery

Shared letters muted; letters that set marge and Margery apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. marge runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against Margery's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
marge
7 ch
Margery

Role in the sentence - marge and Margery

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: marge is anoun and Margeryaname. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “marge” sits inside “Margery”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69929, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marge is recorded at frequency rank #26,155, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɑɹd͡ʒ/. Margery is at rank #43,774, tagged as aname.

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 69929, this pair ranks #52,581 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of marge vs Margery

Shared letters: aegmr. Private to "marge": -. Private to "Margery": y.

"marge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Margery" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marge ← amrge · magre · mareg · margge · marrge · mmarge · mrage
  • Margery ← amrgery · magrery · maregry · margerry · margeryy · margeyr · marggery · margrey

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marge" for "Margery" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marge" is a noun and "Margery" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "marge" or "Margery" show up more?
"marge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,155 in our English list, against #43,774 for "Margery". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "marge" and "Margery".

  • Full dictionary entry for "marge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Margery" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #52,581 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marge" and "Margery" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Margery vs Markey". 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 #52,581 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