Which to use
“marchais” and “marchés” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,194
- “marchais” frequency rank
- #2,528
- “marchés” frequency rank
- 22722
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marchais | marchés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Variété de maquereau sans rayures. | Pluriel de marché. |
Where the eye mixes marchais and marchés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between marchais and marchés
A purely visual mix-up. marchais (\maʁ.ʃɛ\) and marchés (\maʁ.ʃe\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22722, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marchais is recorded at frequency rank #20,194, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.ʃɛ\. marchés is at rank #2,528, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.ʃe\.
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 22722, this pair ranks #356,502 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of marchais vs marchés
Shared letters: achmrs. Private to "marchais": i. Private to "marchés": é.
"marchais" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC · "marchés" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- marchais ← amrchais · macrhais · marcahis · marcchais · marchaiss · marchasi · marchhais · marchias
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marchais" for "marchés" ever safe?
Frequency check: "marchais" vs "marchés" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "marchais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marchés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #356,502 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marchais" and "marchés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marcha vs marchais". 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 #356,502 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.