Which to use
“malles” and “mares” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,281
- “malles” frequency rank
- #30,698
- “mares” frequency rank
- 76979
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malles | mares |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de malle. | Pluriel de mare. |
Where the eye mixes malles and mares
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. malles runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against mares's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses malles with mares
A purely visual mix-up. malles (\mal\) and mares (\maʁ\) 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 76979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malles is recorded at frequency rank #46,281, classified as anoun, pronounced \mal\. mares is at rank #30,698, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁ\.
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 76979, this pair ranks #29,639 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of malles vs mares
Shared letters: aems. Private to "malles": l. Private to "mares": r.
"malles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "mares" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "malles" for "mares" ever safe?
Which is more common, "malles" or "mares"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "malles" and "mares" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "malles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mares" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #29,639 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malles" and "mares" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malles vs manies". 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 #29,639 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.