mare

\mɑʁ\

/\mɑʁ\/ noun

The verdict

“mare” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #11,992) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#11,992
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
3
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Petit amas d’eau dormante qui se forme naturellement par l’abaissement du sol, ou qu’on produit artificiellement dans les villages et dans les fermes, pour des usages communs ou domestiques.

Corpus desk

Index FR-mare · mare · French

mare · rank #11,992 · 3 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #11,992
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 3 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH lentilles

Nearest frequency peer: lentilles (-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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « mare »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « mare » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

mare vs me
50% similar
mare vs MR
0% similar
mare vs mer
50% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for mare
PropertyValue
Headwordmare
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\mɑʁ\
Letters4
Frequency rank#11,992
Misspellings tracked3
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « mare »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).marese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « lentilles » (#11,991), « Marseillaise » (#11,993), « lacunes » (#11,990). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « mare » est au #11,992. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for mare is neighbouring look-alikes ("me", "MR", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \mɑʁ\. Frequency #11,992 among 5,038 “M” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for mare, with forms such as "marre", "mmare", and "mrae". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "me", "MR", "mer", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is mare, spelled M-A-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Petit amas d’eau dormante qui se forme naturellement par l’abaissement du sol, ou qu’on produit artificiellement dans les villages et dans les fermes, pour des usages communs ou domestiques.
  2. 2
    Grande quantité de liquide répandu.
  3. 3
    Zone fixe et morne constituée par un fluide quelconque.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how mare appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. C’est une large dépression herbeuse, avec une mare et un groupe de figuiers au centre.
  2. J’ai vu les oies de neige éclairer, au crépuscule, les bords des mares.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • marre
  • mmare
  • mrae

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mare - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

marre1mmare1mrae2
Edit distance from "mare"

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

How do you spell "mare"?
"mare" is spelled M-A-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \mɑʁ\.
What does "mare" mean?
As a noun, "mare" means: Petit amas d’eau dormante qui se forme naturellement par l’abaissement du sol, ou qu’on produit artificiellement dans les villages et dans les fermes, pour des usages communs ou domestiques.
What words are commonly confused with "mare"?
"mare" is commonly confused with "me", "MR", "mer". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mare"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mare" is \mɑʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mare" come from?
"mare" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mare", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list