mardevsmarquéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: marde is a noun, marqué is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“marde” is a noun and “marqué” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,043
“marde” frequency rank
#2,046
“marqué” frequency rank
38089
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marde marqué
Definition Merde. Qui frappe la vue, l’attention, qui se fait remarquer, apparent, visible.

Where the eye mixes marde and marqué

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
marde
6 ch
marqué

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marde is \maʁd\ while marqué is \maʁ.ke\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38089, 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\. marqué is at rank #2,046, tagged as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.ke\.

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 38089, this pair ranks #257,741 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marde vs marqué

Shared letters: amr. Private to "marde": de. Private to "marqué": qué.

"marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "marqué" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mardeamrde · mardde · mared · marrde · mmarde · mrade

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marde" and "marqué" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marde" is a noun and "marqué" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "marde" or "marqué"?
"marqué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,046 in our French list, against #36,043 for "marde". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list