Which to use
“mâche” and “made” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,456
- “mâche” frequency rank
- #7,860
- “made” frequency rank
- 37316
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mâche | made |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nom vulgaire de Valerianella locusta, plante potagère de la famille des Caprifoliaceae (caprifoliacées) que l'on mange en salade. | Fruit du Saba senegalensis. |
Where the eye mixes mâche and made
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. mâche runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against made's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses mâche with made
A purely visual mix-up. mâche (\mɑʃ\) and made (\mad\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37316, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mâche is recorded at frequency rank #29,456, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑʃ\. made is at rank #7,860, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mad\.
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 37316, this pair ranks #263,298 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of mâche vs made
Shared letters: em. Private to "mâche": châ. Private to "made": ad.
"mâche" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "made" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- made ← amde · madde · maed · mdae · mmade
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mâche" and "made" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "mâche" vs "made" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "mâche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "made" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #263,298 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mâche" and "made" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mâche vs mane". 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 #263,298 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.