marbrevsmarrerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: marbre is a noun, marrer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“marbre” is a noun and “marrer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,109
“marbre” frequency rank
#15,677
“marrer” frequency rank
21786
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marbre marrer
Definition Toute pierre susceptible d'être polie Labourer la terre avec une marre.

Where the eye mixes marbre and marrer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
marbre
6 ch
marrer

Why the eye confuses marbre with marrer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marbre is \maʁbʁ\ while marrer is \ma.ʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21786, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marbre is recorded at frequency rank #6,109, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁbʁ\. marrer is at rank #15,677, tagged as averb, pronounced \ma.ʁe\.

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 21786, this pair ranks #361,428 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marbre vs marrer

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "marbre": b. Private to "marrer": -.

"marbre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "marrer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marbreamrbre · mabrre · marbbre · marber · marbrre · marrbe · marrbre · mmarbre
  • marreramrrer · marer · marerr · marrerr · marrre · mmarrer · mrarer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marbre" for "marrer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marbre" is a noun and "marrer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "marbre" vs "marrer" - which ranks higher?
"marbre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,109 in our French list, against #15,677 for "marrer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "marbre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marrer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #361,428 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marbre" and "marrer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mariera vs marrer". 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 #361,428 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