Which to use
“madre” is a noun and “mahé” is a postp - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,769
- “madre” frequency rank
- #44,035
- “mahé” frequency rank
- 77804
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | madre | mahé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bois veiné, ou tacheté issus du cœur ou de la racine et généralement utilisé pour confectionner des récipients pour boire | Dans, dedans. |
Where the eye mixes madre and mahé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. madre runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against mahé's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses madre with mahé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: madre is \madʁ\ while mahé is \ma.ˈhe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs postp), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77804, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
madre is recorded at frequency rank #33,769, classified as anoun, pronounced \madʁ\. mahé is at rank #44,035, tagged as apostp, pronounced \ma.ˈhe\.
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 77804, this pair ranks #27,409 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of madre vs mahé
Shared letters: am. Private to "madre": der. Private to "mahé": hé.
"madre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "mahé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- madre ← amdre · maddre · mader · madrre · mdare · mmadre
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "madre" for "mahé" ever safe?
Which is more common, "madre" or "mahé"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "madre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mahé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #27,409 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "madre" and "mahé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mahé vs MWh". 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 #27,409 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.