margarine
\maʁ.ɡa.ʁin\
The verdict
“margarine” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #40,367 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #40,367
- frequency rank, French
- 9
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Matière grasse alimentaire composée de graisses et d’huiles (hydrogénées ou non) dispersées dans de l’eau.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | margarine |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \maʁ.ɡa.ʁin\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #40,367 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “margarine” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for margarine is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \maʁ.ɡa.ʁin\. Corpus data places it at rank #40,367 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for margarine, with forms such as "amrgarine", "magrarine", and "maragrine". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "marraine", "mazarine", "margarita", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is margarine, spelled M-A-R-G-A-R-I-N-E.
Definition
- 1Matière grasse alimentaire composée de graisses et d’huiles (hydrogénées ou non) dispersées dans de l’eau.
- 2Corps d’une couleur nacrée que l’on trouve dans le suif de mouton, dans l’axonge et dans quelques autres graisses animales.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amrgarine,magrarine,maragrine,margairne,margarien,margarinne,margarnie,margarrine,marggarine,margraine,marrgarine,mmargarine,mragarine
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of margarine - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "margarine"?
What does "margarine" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "margarine"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “margarine”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-A-R-G-A-R-I-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \maʁ.ɡa.ʁin\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “marraine” - see the side-by-side comparison. margarine vs marraine
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.