marchvsmariConfusable pair

Quick tell: march is a verb, mari is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“march” is a verb and “mari” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,400
“march” frequency rank
#12,867
“mari” frequency rank
27267
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature march mari
Definition Marchar. Mar.

Where the eye mixes march and mari

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
march
4 ch
mari

Why the eye confuses march with mari

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: march is /mɑːt͡ʃ/ while mari is /ˈma.ɾi/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27267, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

march is recorded at frequency rank #14,400, classified as averb, pronounced /mɑːt͡ʃ/. mari is at rank #12,867, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈma.ɾi/.

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 27267, this pair ranks #227,677 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of march vs mari

Shared letters: amr. Private to "march": ch. Private to "mari": i.

"march" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "mari" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marchamrch · macrh · marcch · marchh · marhc · marrch · mmarch · mrach
  • mariamri · mair · marri · mmari · mrai

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "march" for "mari" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "march" is a verb and "mari" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "march" or "mari" show up more?
"mari" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,867 in our Spanish list, against #14,400 for "march". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "march" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mari" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #227,677 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "march" and "mari" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "march vs math". 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 #227,677 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list