mardevsmaryseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“marde” and “maryse” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#36,043
“marde” frequency rank
#25,039
“maryse” frequency rank
61082
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marde maryse
Definition Merde. Spatule faite d'un matériau souple tel que le caoutchouc, le silicone ou certains plastiques, servant à racler le fond des récipients.

Where the eye mixes marde and maryse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. marde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against maryse's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
marde
6 ch
maryse

Look-alike desk: marde vs maryse

A purely visual mix-up. marde (\maʁd\) and maryse (\ma.ʁiz\) 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 61082, 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\. maryse is at rank #25,039, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁiz\.

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 61082, this pair ranks #94,165 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of marde vs maryse

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "marde": d. Private to "maryse": sy.

"marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "maryse" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marde ← amrde · mardde · mared · marrde · mmarde · mrade
  • maryse ← amryse · marryse · marsye · maryes · marysse · maryyse · mayrse · mmaryse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marde" for "maryse" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\maʁd\ versus \ma.ʁiz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "marde" or "maryse"?
"maryse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,039 in our French list, against #36,043 for "marde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "marde" and "maryse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maryse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,165 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marde" and "maryse" 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 #94,165 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list