Which to use
“mairie” and “marde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,430
- “mairie” frequency rank
- #36,043
- “marde” frequency rank
- 38473
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mairie | marde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Charge, dignité de maire. | Merde. |
Where the eye mixes mairie and marde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mairie runs 6 letters (CVVCVV) against marde's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: mairie vs marde
A purely visual mix-up. mairie (\me.ʁi\) 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 38473, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mairie is recorded at frequency rank #2,430, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.ʁi\. 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 38473, this pair ranks #255,022 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of mairie vs marde
Shared letters: aemr. Private to "mairie": i. Private to "marde": d.
"mairie" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV · "marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mairie" and "marde" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "mairie" vs "marde" - which ranks higher?
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 "mairie" 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 #255,022 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mairie" and "marde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs marde". 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 #255,022 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.