Which to use
“malgré” is a preposition and “maline” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #556
- “malgré” frequency rank
- #46,280
- “maline” frequency rank
- 46836
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malgré | maline |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contre le vouloir de quelqu’un, contre le gré de. | Grandes marées qui ont lieu à la nouvelle et à la pleine lune, et dont les plus considérables arrivent aux équinoxes. On l’emploie surtout au pluriel. |
Where the eye mixes malgré and maline
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. malgré (CVCCCV) and maline (CVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: malgré vs maline
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: malgré is \mal.ɡʁe\ while maline is \ma.lin\. 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 (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46836, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malgré is recorded at frequency rank #556, classified as aprep, pronounced \mal.ɡʁe\. maline is at rank #46,280, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.lin\.
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 46836, this pair ranks #191,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of malgré vs maline
Shared letters: alm. Private to "malgré": gré. Private to "maline": ein.
"malgré" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "maline" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- maline ← amline · mailne · malinne · malline · malnie · mlaine · mmaline
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "malgré" and "maline" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "malgré" or "maline" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "malgré" and "maline" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "malgré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "maline" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #191,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malgré" and "maline" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maline vs marlin". 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 #191,677 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.