Which to use
“madre” is a noun and “mordre” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,769
- “madre” frequency rank
- #13,429
- “mordre” frequency rank
- 47198
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | madre | mordre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bois veiné, ou tacheté issus du cœur ou de la racine et généralement utilisé pour confectionner des récipients pour boire | Serrer avec les dents de manière à entamer. |
Where the eye mixes madre and mordre
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. madre runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against mordre's 6 (CVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: madre vs mordre
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: madre is \madʁ\ while mordre is \mɔʁdʁ\. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47198, 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\. mordre is at rank #13,429, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɔʁdʁ\.
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 47198, this pair ranks #188,776 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of madre vs mordre
Shared letters: demr. Private to "madre": a. Private to "mordre": o.
"madre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "mordre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "madre" for "mordre" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "madre" or "mordre" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "madre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mordre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #188,776 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "madre" and "mordre" 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 #188,776 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.