Which to use
“maître” is a noun and “malgré” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #946
- “maître” frequency rank
- #556
- “malgré” frequency rank
- 1502
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maître | malgré |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Personne qui exerce son autorité. | Contre le vouloir de quelqu’un, contre le gré de. |
Where the eye mixes maître and malgré
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. maître (CVVCCV) and malgré (CVCCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses maître with malgré
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maître is \mɛtʁ\ while malgré is \mal.ɡʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1502, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maître is recorded at frequency rank #946, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛtʁ\. malgré is at rank #556, tagged as aprep, pronounced \mal.ɡʁe\.
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 1502, this pair ranks #437,945 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of maître vs malgré
Shared letters: amr. Private to "maître": etî. Private to "malgré": glé.
"maître" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "malgré" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maître" and "malgré" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "maître" or "malgré" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "maître" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malgré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #437,945 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maître" and "malgré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magret vs malgré". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #437,945 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.