makesvsmaréeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#41,884
“makes” frequency rank
#8,269
“marée” frequency rank
50153
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature makes marée
Definition Pluriel de make. Mouvement d’ondulation de la surface de la mer, provoquant une baisse et une hausse de son niveau sur un rythme journalier ou semi-journalier selon les régions du globe.

Where the eye mixes makes and marée

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

5 ch
makes
5 ch
marée

Why the eye confuses makes with marée

A purely visual mix-up. makes (\ˈmeɪks\) and marée (\ma.ʁe\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50153, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

makes is recorded at frequency rank #41,884, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmeɪks\. marée is at rank #8,269, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁe\.

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 50153, this pair ranks #164,871 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of makes vs marée

Shared letters: aem. Private to "makes": ks. Private to "marée": .

"makes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • makesamkes · maeks · makess · makkes · makse · mkaes · mmakes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "makes" for "marée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈmeɪks\ versus \ma.ʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "makes" vs "marée" - which ranks higher?
"marée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,269 in our French list, against #41,884 for "makes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "makes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #164,871 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "makes" and "marée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Maël vs makes". 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 #164,871 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