Which to use
“marais” is a noun and “mariés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,846
- “marais” frequency rank
- #7,593
- “mariés” frequency rank
- 14439
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marais | mariés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Étendue de terrain périodiquement inondée ou continuellement humide, recouverte d’une nappe d’eau peu profonde. | Masculin pluriel de l’adjectif marié. |
Where the eye mixes marais and mariés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between marais and mariés
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marais is \ma.ʁɛ\ while mariés is \ma.ʁje\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14439, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marais is recorded at frequency rank #6,846, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁɛ\. mariés is at rank #7,593, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ma.ʁje\.
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 14439, this pair ranks #396,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of marais vs mariés
Shared letters: aimrs. Private to "marais": -. Private to "mariés": é.
"marais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "mariés" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- marais ← amrais · maaris · maraiss · marasi · marias · marrais · mmarais · mraais
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marais" for "mariés" ever safe?
Frequency check: "marais" vs "mariés" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "marais" and "mariés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "marais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mariés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #396,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marais" and "mariés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mariera vs mariés". 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 #396,648 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.