Which to use
“marde” and “mégarde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,043
- “marde” frequency rank
- #43,029
- “mégarde” frequency rank
- 79072
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marde | mégarde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Merde. | (Rarement employé sans la préposition « par ») Erreur d’inattention, étourderie. |
Where the eye mixes marde and mégarde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. marde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against mégarde's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: marde vs mégarde
A purely visual mix-up. marde (\maʁd\) and mégarde (\me.ɡaʁd\) 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 79072, 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\. mégarde is at rank #43,029, tagged as anoun, pronounced \me.ɡaʁd\.
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 79072, this pair ranks #24,130 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of marde vs mégarde
Shared letters: ademr. Private to "marde": -. Private to "mégarde": gé.
"marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "mégarde" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- marde ← amrde · mardde · mared · marrde · mmarde · mrade
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marde" for "mégarde" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "marde" or "mégarde" 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 "marde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mégarde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #24,130 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marde" and "mégarde" 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 #24,130 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.