manquantevsmarquantsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#31,594
“manquante” frequency rank
#19,068
“marquants” frequency rank
50662
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manquante marquants
Definition Féminin singulier de manquant. Masculin pluriel de marquant.

Where the eye mixes manquante and marquants

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. manquante (CVCCVVCCV) and marquants (CVCCVVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
manquante
9 ch
marquants

Why the eye confuses manquante with marquants

A purely visual mix-up. manquante (\mɑ̃.kɑ̃t\) and marquants (\maʁ.kɑ̃\) 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 50662, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manquante is recorded at frequency rank #31,594, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɑ̃.kɑ̃t\. marquants is at rank #19,068, tagged as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.kɑ̃\.

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 50662, this pair ranks #160,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of manquante vs marquants

Shared letters: amnqtu. Private to "manquante": e. Private to "marquants": rs.

"manquante" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCV  ·  "marquants" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manquanteamnquante · mannquante · manqaunte · manqquante · manquanet · manquannte · manquantte · manquatne
  • marquantsamrquants · maqruants · marqaunts · marqquants · marquannts · marquanst · marquantss · marquantts

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manquante" for "marquants" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɑ̃.kɑ̃t\ versus \maʁ.kɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "manquante" vs "marquants" - which ranks higher?
"marquants" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,068 in our French list, against #31,594 for "manquante". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "manquante" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marquants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #160,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manquante" and "marquants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manquante 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 #160,904 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