makivsmarkTell them apart

Which to use

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

#42,449
“maki” frequency rank
#3,777
“mark” frequency rank
46226
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maki mark
Definition Espèce de la famille des lémuridés vivant à Madagascar, à museau allongé, au pelage épais et laineux et à la queue longue et touffue. Reichsmark.

Where the eye mixes maki and mark

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

4 ch
maki
4 ch
mark

Visual trap between maki and mark

A purely visual mix-up. maki (\ma.ki\) and mark (\maʁk\) 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 46226, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maki is recorded at frequency rank #42,449, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ki\. mark is at rank #3,777, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁk\.

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 46226, this pair ranks #196,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maki vs mark

Shared letters: akm. Private to "maki": i. Private to "mark": r.

"maki" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mark" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • makiamki · maik · makki · mkai · mmaki
  • markamrk · makr · markk · marrk · mmark · mrak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maki" and "mark" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ma.ki\ versus \maʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "maki" or "mark"?
"mark" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,777 in our French list, against #42,449 for "maki". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maki" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mark" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maki" and "mark" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs maki". 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 #196,596 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