Which to use
“maiden” and “marde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,878
- “maiden” frequency rank
- #36,043
- “marde” frequency rank
- 82921
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maiden | marde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cheval n'ayant jamais gagné une course. | Merde. |
Where the eye mixes maiden and marde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. maiden runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against marde's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: maiden vs marde
A purely visual mix-up. maiden (\me.dɛn\) and marde (\maʁd\) 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 82921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maiden is recorded at frequency rank #46,878, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.dɛn\. marde is at rank #36,043, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁd\.
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 82921, this pair ranks #15,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of maiden vs marde
Shared letters: adem. Private to "maiden": in. Private to "marde": r.
"maiden" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "maiden" for "marde" ever safe?
Which is more common, "maiden" or "marde"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "maiden" and "marde" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "maiden" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #15,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maiden" and "marde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs maiden". 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 #15,755 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.