Which to use
“marché” and “mare” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #492
- “marché” frequency rank
- #11,992
- “mare” frequency rank
- 12484
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marché | mare |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Petit amas d’eau dormante qui se forme naturellement par l’abaissement du sol, ou qu’on produit artificiellement dans les villages et dans les fermes, pour des usages communs ou domestiques. |
Where the eye mixes marché and mare
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses marché with mare
A purely visual mix-up. marché (\maʁ.ʃe\) and mare (\mɑʁ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12484, 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\. mare is at rank #11,992, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɑʁ\.
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 12484, this pair ranks #405,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of marché vs mare
Shared letters: amr. Private to "marché": ché. Private to "mare": e.
"marché" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "mare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- mare ← marre · mmare · mrae
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "marché" and "mare" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "marché" or "mare" show up more?
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 "marché" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mare" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #405,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marché" and "mare" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maid vs mare". 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 #405,094 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.