manquaitvsmarquaitWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#5,783
“manquait” frequency rank
#24,669
“marquait” frequency rank
30452
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manquait marquait
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de manquer. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de marquer.

Where the eye mixes manquait and marquait

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. manquait and marquait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
manquait
8 ch
marquait

Visual trap between manquait and marquait

A purely visual mix-up. manquait (\mɑ̃.kɛ\) and marquait (\maʁ.kɛ\) 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 - n in “manquait” becomes r in “marquait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30452, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manquait is recorded at frequency rank #5,783, classified as averb, pronounced \mɑ̃.kɛ\. marquait is at rank #24,669, tagged as averb, pronounced \maʁ.kɛ\.

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 30452, this pair ranks #310,226 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of manquait vs marquait

Shared letters: aimqtu. Private to "manquait": n. Private to "marquait": r.

"manquait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVVC  ·  "marquait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manquaitamnquait · mannquait · manqauit · manqquait · manquaitt · manquati · manquiat · manuqait
  • marquaitamrquait · maqruait · marqauit · marqquait · marquaitt · marquati · marquiat · marrquait

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "manquait" and "marquait" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mɑ̃.kɛ\ versus \maʁ.kɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "manquait" or "marquait" show up more?
"manquait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,783 in our French list, against #24,669 for "marquait". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "manquait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marquait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #310,226 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manquait" and "marquait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marquait vs masquant". 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 #310,226 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