madrasvsmaresWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“madras” and “mares” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#40,852
“madras” frequency rank
#30,698
“mares” frequency rank
71550
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature madras mares
Definition Étoffe dont la chaîne est de soie et la trame de coton, et qui est ainsi nommée parce qu’elle a été fabriquée d’abord à Madras, ville de l’Inde. Pluriel de mare.

Where the eye mixes madras and mares

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
madras
5 ch
mares

Visual trap between madras and mares

A purely visual mix-up. madras (\ma.dʁɑs\) and mares (\maʁ\) 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 71550, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

madras is recorded at frequency rank #40,852, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.dʁɑs\. mares is at rank #30,698, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁ\.

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 71550, this pair ranks #47,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of madras vs mares

Shared letters: amrs. Private to "madras": d. Private to "mares": e.

"madras" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mares" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • madrasamdras · madars · maddras · madrass · madrras · madrsa · mardas · mdaras
  • maresamres · maers · maress · marres · marse · mmares · mraes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "madras" for "mares" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ma.dʁɑs\ versus \maʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "madras" vs "mares" - which ranks higher?
"mares" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,698 in our French list, against #40,852 for "madras". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "madras" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mares" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #47,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "madras" and "mares" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "macros vs madras". 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 #47,158 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