Which to use
“maïs” and “marais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #6,849
- “maïs” frequency rank
- #6,846
- “marais” frequency rank
- 13695
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maïs | marais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nom vernaculaire de Zea mays subsp. mays, — et de ses cultivars —, plante herbacée de la famille des Poaceae (ou Poacées ou Graminées), originaire du Mexique et du Guatemala, à tige droite et aux feuilles lancéolées, et que l’on cultive comme plante fourragère ou pour ses graines. | Étendue de terrain périodiquement inondée ou continuellement humide, recouverte d’une nappe d’eau peu profonde. |
Where the eye mixes maïs and marais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. maïs runs 4 letters (CVCC) against marais's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses maïs with marais
A purely visual mix-up. maïs (\ma.is\) and marais (\ma.ʁɛ\) 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 13695, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maïs is recorded at frequency rank #6,849, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.is\. marais is at rank #6,846, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁɛ\.
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 13695, this pair ranks #399,927 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of maïs vs marais
Shared letters: ams. Private to "maïs": ï. Private to "marais": ir.
"maïs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "marais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- marais ← amrais · maaris · maraiss · marasi · marias · marrais · mmarais · mraais
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maïs" and "marais" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "maïs" or "marais" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "maïs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #399,927 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maïs" and "marais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs maïs". 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 #399,927 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.