marâtre
\ma.ʁɑtʁ\
The verdict
“marâtre” is uncommon French (frequency #73,345 among 5,038 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #73,345
- frequency rank, French
- 5,038
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Belle-mère, épouse du père par rapport aux enfants qu’il a eus d’un précédent mariage.
Corpus desk
Index FR-maratre · marâtre · French
marâtre · rank #73,345 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #73,345
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,038
- PHOTO-FINISH marton
Nearest frequency peer: marton (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rangs de longue queue près de « marâtre »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- marmot
marmot
26,660 corpus weight
- marnais
marnais
26,658 corpus weight
- marton
marton
26,657 corpus weight
- marâtre
marâtre
26,656 corpus weight
- Mascate
Mascate
26,655 corpus weight
- mathurins
mathurins
26,654 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « marâtre » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | marâtre |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ma.ʁɑtʁ\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #73,345 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « marâtre » en français
Rare enough to double-check
marâtre is uncommon French at frequency #73,345 among 5,038 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ma.ʁɑtʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for marâtre, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is marâtre, spelled M-A-R-Â-T-R-E.
Definition
- 1Belle-mère, épouse du père par rapport aux enfants qu’il a eus d’un précédent mariage.
- 2Mauvaise belle-mère.
- 3Dans une situation de polygamie, coépouse de la mère.
- 4Mauvaise mère.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how marâtre appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
J’affectai les chagrins d’une injuste marâtre.
Françoise de Plaix, la femme qu'il épousa, lui donna trois autres enfants : deux filles, Madeleine et Claude ; un fils , Nicolas. — Vous savez que , si rien au monde ne vaut une mère, rien n'est pire qu'une marâtre, — si ce n'est une belle-mère. — Donc Françoise de Plaix, comme une vraie marâtre qu'elle était, aimait peu les enfants de l'autre lit, et tâc…
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "marâtre", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).