mairesvsmaréeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#5,362
“maires” frequency rank
#8,269
“marée” frequency rank
13631
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maires marée
Definition Pluriel de maire. Mouvement d’ondulation de la surface de la mer, provoquant une baisse et une hausse de son niveau sur un rythme journalier ou semi-journalier selon les régions du globe.

Where the eye mixes maires and marée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. maires runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against marée's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
maires
5 ch
marée

Visual trap between maires and marée

A purely visual mix-up. maires (\mɛʁ\) and marée (\ma.ʁe\) 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 13631, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maires is recorded at frequency rank #5,362, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\. marée is at rank #8,269, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁe\.

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 13631, this pair ranks #400,213 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maires vs marée

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "maires": is. Private to "marée": é.

"maires" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mairesamires · maiers · mairess · mairres · mairse · maries · miares · mmaires

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maires" and "marée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɛʁ\ versus \ma.ʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "maires" vs "marée" - which ranks higher?
"maires" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,362 in our French list, against #8,269 for "marée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maires" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #400,213 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maires" and "marée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "majorée vs marée". 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 #400,213 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