manquesvsmarquesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#8,882
“manques” frequency rank
#2,838
“marques” frequency rank
11720
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manques marques
Definition Pluriel de manque. Pluriel de marque.

Where the eye mixes manques and marques

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
manques
7 ch
marques

Look-alike desk: manques vs marques

A purely visual mix-up. manques (\mɑ̃k\) and marques (\maʁk\) 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 “manques” becomes r in “marques”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11720, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manques is recorded at frequency rank #8,882, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃k\. marques is at rank #2,838, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁk\.

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 11720, this pair ranks #408,097 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of manques vs marques

Shared letters: aemqsu. Private to "manques": n. Private to "marques": r.

"manques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "marques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manquesamnques · mannques · manqeus · manqques · manquess · manquse · manuqes · maqnues
  • marquesamrques · maqrues · marqeus · marqques · marquess · marquse · marrques · maruqes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manques" for "marques" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɑ̃k\ versus \maʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "manques" or "marques"?
"marques" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,838 in our French list, against #8,882 for "manques". 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 "manques" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #408,097 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manques" and "marques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maniaques vs manques". 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 #408,097 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