Which to use
“marde” and “merdes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,043
- “marde” frequency rank
- #10,359
- “merdes” frequency rank
- 46402
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marde | merdes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Merde. | Pluriel de merde. |
Where the eye mixes marde and merdes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. marde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against merdes's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses marde with merdes
A purely visual mix-up. marde (\maʁd\) and merdes (\mɛʁd\) 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 46402, 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\. merdes is at rank #10,359, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁd\.
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 46402, this pair ranks #195,239 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of marde vs merdes
Shared letters: demr. Private to "marde": a. Private to "merdes": s.
"marde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "merdes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "marde" and "merdes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "marde" vs "merdes" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "marde" and "merdes" 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 "merdes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #195,239 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marde" and "merdes" 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 #195,239 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.