Which to use
“malines” and “marnes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,589
- “malines” frequency rank
- #41,401
- “marnes” frequency rank
- 60990
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malines | marnes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dentelle très fine qui s’est fabriquée originairement dans la ville de Malines, en Flandre. | Pluriel de marne. |
Where the eye mixes malines and marnes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. malines runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against marnes's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between malines and marnes
A purely visual mix-up. malines (\ma.lin\) and marnes (\maʁn\) 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 60990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malines is recorded at frequency rank #19,589, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.lin\. marnes is at rank #41,401, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁn\.
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 60990, this pair ranks #94,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of malines vs marnes
Shared letters: aemns. Private to "malines": il. Private to "marnes": r.
"malines" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC · "marnes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "malines" and "marnes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "malines" or "marnes"?
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 "malines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marnes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #94,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malines" and "marnes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mane vs marnes". 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 #94,676 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.