Which to use
“marde” and “marées” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,043
- “marde” frequency rank
- #16,413
- “marées” frequency rank
- 52456
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marde | marées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Merde. | Pluriel de marée. |
Where the eye mixes marde and marées
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. marde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against marées's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses marde with marées
A purely visual mix-up. marde (\maʁd\) and marées (\ma.ʁe\) 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 52456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marde is recorded at frequency rank #36,043, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁd\. marées is at rank #16,413, tagged as anoun, 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 52456, this pair ranks #147,595 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of marde vs marées
Shared letters: aemr. Private to "marde": d. Private to "marées": sé.
"marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "marées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- marde ← amrde · mardde · mared · marrde · mmarde · mrade
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marde" for "marées" ever safe?
Which is more common, "marde" or "marées"?
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 "marde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #147,595 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marde" and "marées" 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 #147,595 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.