manquantsvsmarquantsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#28,245
“manquants” frequency rank
#19,068
“marquants” frequency rank
47313
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manquants marquants
Definition Masculin pluriel de manquant. Masculin pluriel de marquant.

Where the eye mixes manquants and marquants

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. manquants and marquants follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
manquants
9 ch
marquants

Visual trap between manquants and marquants

A purely visual mix-up. manquants (\mɑ̃.kɑ̃\) 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 differ by a single letter - n in “manquants” becomes r in “marquants”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47313, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manquants is recorded at frequency rank #28,245, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɑ̃.kɑ̃\. 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 47313, this pair ranks #187,939 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of manquants vs marquants

Shared letters: amnqstu. Private to "manquants": -. Private to "marquants": r.

"manquants" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCC  ·  "marquants" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manquantsamnquants · mannquants · manqaunts · manqquants · manquannts · manquanst · manquantss · manquantts
  • marquantsamrquants · maqruants · marqaunts · marqquants · marquannts · marquanst · marquantss · marquantts

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "manquants" and "marquants" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mɑ̃.kɑ̃\ versus \maʁ.kɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "manquants" 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 #28,245 for "manquants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "manquants" 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 #187,939 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manquants" and "marquants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manquants 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 #187,939 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