maisonvsmarronWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#235
“maison” frequency rank
#9,510
“marron” frequency rank
9745
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maison marron
Definition Bâtiment servant de logis, d’habitation, de demeure. Fruit rond comestible de certaines variétés de châtaigniers, plus gros qu’une châtaigne ordinaire, de couleur brune.

Where the eye mixes maison and marron

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
maison
6 ch
marron

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. maison (\me.zɔ̃\) and marron (\ma.ʁɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9745, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maison is recorded at frequency rank #235, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.zɔ̃\. marron is at rank #9,510, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁɔ̃\.

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 9745, this pair ranks #415,574 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maison vs marron

Shared letters: amno. Private to "maison": is. Private to "marron": r.

"maison" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "marron" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maisonamison · maiosn · maisno · maisonn · maisson · masion · miason · mmaison
  • marronamrron · maron · marorn · marrno · marronn · mmarron · mraron

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maison" and "marron" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\me.zɔ̃\ versus \ma.ʁɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "maison" or "marron"?
"maison" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #235 in our French list, against #9,510 for "marron". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list