Which to use
“mâche” and “madre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,456
- “mâche” frequency rank
- #33,769
- “madre” frequency rank
- 63225
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mâche | madre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nom vulgaire de Valerianella locusta, plante potagère de la famille des Caprifoliaceae (caprifoliacées) que l'on mange en salade. | Bois veiné, ou tacheté issus du cœur ou de la racine et généralement utilisé pour confectionner des récipients pour boire |
Where the eye mixes mâche and madre
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. mâche and madre follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses mâche with madre
A purely visual mix-up. mâche (\mɑʃ\) and madre (\madʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63225, 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\. madre is at rank #33,769, tagged as anoun, pronounced \madʁ\.
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 63225, this pair ranks #83,095 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mâche vs madre
Shared letters: em. Private to "mâche": châ. Private to "madre": adr.
"mâche" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "madre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- madre ← amdre · maddre · mader · madrre · mdare · mmadre
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mâche" and "madre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "mâche" or "madre"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "mâche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "madre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #83,095 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mâche" and "madre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "madre vs magret". 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 #83,095 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.