marevsmleWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#11,992
“mare” frequency rank
#43,557
“mle” frequency rank
55549
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mare mle
Definition Petit amas d’eau dormante qui se forme naturellement par l’abaissement du sol, ou qu’on produit artificiellement dans les villages et dans les fermes, pour des usages communs ou domestiques. Abréviation de matricule.

Letter map: mare vs mle

Shared letters muted; letters that set mare and mle apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
mare
3 ch
mle

Pair insight - mare / mle

mare and mle are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mare is recorded at frequency rank #11,992, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑʁ\. mle is at rank #43,557, tagged as anoun.

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 55549, this pair ranks #126,795 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mare vs mle

Shared letters: em. Private to "mare": ar. Private to "mle": l.

"mare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mle" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maremarre · mmare · mrae

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mare" and "mle" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "mare" vs "mle" - which ranks higher?
"mare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,992 in our French list, against #43,557 for "mle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "mare" and "mle". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mle" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #126,795 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mare" and "mle" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mle vs MWh". 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 #126,795 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