manguevsmorgueTell them apart

Which to use

“mangue” and “morgue” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#27,121
“mangue” frequency rank
#22,946
“morgue” frequency rank
50067
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mangue morgue
Definition Fruit comestible tropical du manguier, de la famille des anacardiacées. C’est une drupe charnue à la chair jaune et sucrée, à la peau verte, jaune ou rouge et contenant un noyau plat et large sur lequel la chair adhère bien. Contenance fière et orgueilleuse ; arrogance.

Where the eye mixes mangue and morgue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mangue and morgue follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
mangue
6 ch
morgue

Why the eye confuses mangue with morgue

A purely visual mix-up. mangue (\mɑ̃ɡ\) and morgue (\mɔʁɡ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50067, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mangue is recorded at frequency rank #27,121, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃ɡ\. morgue is at rank #22,946, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁɡ\.

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 50067, this pair ranks #165,568 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mangue vs morgue

Shared letters: egmu. Private to "mangue": an. Private to "morgue": or.

"mangue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "morgue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mangueamngue · magnue · mangeu · manggue · manngue · manuge · mmangue · mnague
  • morguemmorgue · mogrue · morgeu · morggue · morrgue · moruge · mrogue · omrgue

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mangue" and "morgue" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɑ̃ɡ\ versus \mɔʁɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "mangue" vs "morgue" - which ranks higher?
"morgue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,946 in our French list, against #27,121 for "mangue". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "mangue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "morgue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #165,568 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mangue" and "morgue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mane vs mangue". 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 #165,568 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list