MadèrevsmalgréTell them apart

Quick tell: Madère is a name, malgré is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Madère” is a name and “malgré” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,257
“Madère” frequency rank
#556
“malgré” frequency rank
30813
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Madère malgré
Definition Île la plus importante de l’archipel madérien, située à 643 km au nord-ouest du Maroc et appartenant au Portugal. Contre le vouloir de quelqu’un, contre le gré de.

Where the eye mixes Madère and malgré

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
Madère
6 ch
malgré

Look-alike desk: Madère vs malgré

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Madère is \ma.dɛʁ\ while malgré is \mal.ɡʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30813, 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\. malgré is at rank #556, tagged as aprep, pronounced \mal.ɡʁe\.

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 30813, this pair ranks #307,824 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Madère vs malgré

Shared letters: amr. Private to "Madère": deè. Private to "malgré": glé.

"Madère" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "malgré" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Madère" for "malgré" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Madère" is a name and "malgré" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Madère" or "malgré"?
"malgré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #556 in our French list, against #30,257 for "Madère". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Madère" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "malgré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #307,824 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Madère" and "malgré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Maddie vs Madère". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #307,824 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list