Which to use
“maquis” and “marais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,192
- “maquis” frequency rank
- #6,846
- “marais” frequency rank
- 27038
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maquis | marais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Formation végétale arbustive très dense de région méditerranéenne. | Étendue de terrain périodiquement inondée ou continuellement humide, recouverte d’une nappe d’eau peu profonde. |
Where the eye mixes maquis and marais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. maquis and marais follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses maquis with marais
A purely visual mix-up. maquis (\ma.ki\) and marais (\ma.ʁɛ\) 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 27038, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maquis is recorded at frequency rank #20,192, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ki\. marais is at rank #6,846, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁɛ\.
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 27038, this pair ranks #331,415 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of maquis vs marais
Shared letters: aims. Private to "maquis": qu. Private to "marais": r.
"maquis" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "marais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maquis" and "marais" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "maquis" or "marais" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "maquis" and "marais" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "maquis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #331,415 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maquis" and "marais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maquis vs moqués". 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 #331,415 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.