makervsmerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#31,128
“maker” frequency rank
#657
“mer” frequency rank
31785
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maker mer
Definition Personne qui fabrique en amateur des machines. Vaste étendue d’eau salée qui baigne les diverses parties de la terre.

Where the eye mixes maker and mer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
maker
3 ch
mer

Look-alike desk: maker vs mer

A purely visual mix-up. maker (\mɛj.kœʁ\) and mer (\mɛʁ\) 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 31785, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maker is recorded at frequency rank #31,128, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛj.kœʁ\. mer is at rank #657, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\.

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 31785, this pair ranks #301,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maker vs mer

Shared letters: emr. Private to "maker": ak. Private to "mer": -.

"maker" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "mer" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • makeramker · maekr · makerr · makker · makre · mkaer · mmaker

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maker" and "mer" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mɛj.kœʁ\ versus \mɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "maker" or "mer" show up more?
"mer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #657 in our French list, against #31,128 for "maker". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "maker" and "mer" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #301,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maker" and "mer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maker vs Meier". 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 #301,570 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list