Which to use
“maki” and “marks” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #42,449
- “maki” frequency rank
- #19,341
- “marks” frequency rank
- 61790
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maki | marks |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Pluriel de mark. |
Where the eye mixes maki and marks
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. maki runs 4 letters (CVCV) against marks's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses maki with marks
A purely visual mix-up. maki (\ma.ki\) and marks (\maʁk\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61790, 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\. marks is at rank #19,341, 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 61790, this pair ranks #90,423 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of maki vs marks
Shared letters: akm. Private to "maki": i. Private to "marks": rs.
"maki" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "marks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maki" and "marks" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "maki" vs "marks" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "maki" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #90,423 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maki" and "marks" 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 #90,423 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.