Which to use
“Madère” is a name and “maigre” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #30,257
- “Madère” frequency rank
- #8,733
- “maigre” frequency rank
- 38990
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Madère | maigre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Île la plus importante de l’archipel madérien, située à 643 km au nord-ouest du Maroc et appartenant au Portugal. | Qui contient peu ou pas de graisse ou de liant. |
Where the eye mixes Madère and maigre
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Madère (CVCVCV) and maigre (CVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses Madère with maigre
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Madère is \ma.dɛʁ\ while maigre is \mɛɡʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Madère is recorded at frequency rank #30,257, classified as aname, pronounced \ma.dɛʁ\. maigre is at rank #8,733, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɛɡʁ\.
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 38990, this pair ranks #251,328 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of Madère vs maigre
Shared letters: aemr. Private to "Madère": dè. Private to "maigre": gi.
"Madère" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "maigre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- maigre ← amigre · magire · maiger · maiggre · maigrre · mairge · miagre · mmaigre
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "Madère" and "maigre" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "Madère" vs "maigre" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "Madère" and "maigre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "Madère" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maigre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #251,328 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Madère" and "maigre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Maddie vs Madère". 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 #251,328 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.