Which to use
“marché” and “marde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #492
- “marché” frequency rank
- #36,043
- “marde” frequency rank
- 36535
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marché | marde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu public où s’achètent et se vendent les denrées, les marchandises, les objets d’usage courant. → voir marché-gare et place du marché | Merde. |
Where the eye mixes marché and marde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses marché with marde
A purely visual mix-up. marché (\maʁ.ʃe\) and marde (\maʁd\) 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 36535, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marché is recorded at frequency rank #492, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.ʃe\. marde is at rank #36,043, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁd\.
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 36535, this pair ranks #268,939 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of marché vs marde
Shared letters: amr. Private to "marché": ché. Private to "marde": de.
"marché" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- marde ← amrde · mardde · mared · marrde · mmarde · mrade
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "marché" and "marde" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "marché" or "marde" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "marché" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #268,939 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marché" and "marde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs marde". 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 #268,939 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.