Which to use
“mairies” and “mares” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,527
- “mairies” frequency rank
- #30,698
- “mares” frequency rank
- 49225
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mairies | mares |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de mairie. | Pluriel de mare. |
Where the eye mixes mairies and mares
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. mairies runs 7 letters (CVVCVVC) against mares's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: mairies vs mares
A purely visual mix-up. mairies (\me.ʁi\) and mares (\maʁ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49225, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mairies is recorded at frequency rank #18,527, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.ʁi\. mares is at rank #30,698, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁ\.
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 49225, this pair ranks #172,390 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of mairies vs mares
Shared letters: aemrs. Private to "mairies": i. Private to "mares": -.
"mairies" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC · "mares" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mairies" and "mares" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "mairies" or "mares" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "mairies" and "mares" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "mairies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mares" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #172,390 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mairies" and "mares" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "macros vs mares". 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 #172,390 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.