Which to use
“marde” and “mate” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,043
- “marde” frequency rank
- #13,837
- “mate” frequency rank
- 49880
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marde | mate |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Merde. | Endroit, dans Paris, où se tenait le conseil de filous. |
Where the eye mixes marde and mate
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between marde and mate
A purely visual mix-up. marde (\maʁd\) and mate (\mat\) 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 49880, 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\. mate is at rank #13,837, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mat\.
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 49880, this pair ranks #167,150 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of marde vs mate
Shared letters: aem. Private to "marde": dr. Private to "mate": t.
"marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "mate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "marde" and "mate" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "marde" or "mate"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "marde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #167,150 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marde" and "mate" 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 #167,150 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.