Which to use
“malin” and “marin” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,152
- “malin” frequency rank
- #3,936
- “marin” frequency rank
- 9088
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malin | marin |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Porté à nuire, à faire du mal à autrui. | Qui appartient à la mer. |
Where the eye mixes malin and marin
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: malin vs marin
A purely visual mix-up. malin (\ma.lɛ̃\) and marin (\ma.ʁɛ̃\) 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 a single letter - l in “malin” becomes r in “marin”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9088, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malin is recorded at frequency rank #5,152, classified as anadj, pronounced \ma.lɛ̃\. marin is at rank #3,936, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ma.ʁɛ̃\.
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 9088, this pair ranks #417,837 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of malin vs marin
Shared letters: aimn. Private to "malin": l. Private to "marin": r.
"malin" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "marin" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "malin" and "marin" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "malin" or "marin"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "malin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #417,837 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malin" and "marin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs malin". 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 #417,837 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.