maréevsmargeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#8,269
“marée” frequency rank
#3,410
“marge” frequency rank
11679
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marée marge
Definition Mouvement d’ondulation de la surface de la mer, provoquant une baisse et une hausse de son niveau sur un rythme journalier ou semi-journalier selon les régions du globe. Lisière ; bord ; périphérie.

Where the eye mixes marée and marge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
marée
5 ch
marge

Visual trap between marée and marge

A purely visual mix-up. marée (\ma.ʁe\) and marge (\maʁʒ\) 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 a single letter - é in “marée” becomes g in “marge”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11679, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marée is recorded at frequency rank #8,269, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.ʁe\. marge is at rank #3,410, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁʒ\.

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 11679, this pair ranks #408,243 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marée vs marge

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "marée": é. Private to "marge": g.

"marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "marge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • margeamrge · magre · mareg · margge · marrge · mmarge · mrage

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "marée" and "marge" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ma.ʁe\ versus \maʁʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "marée" or "marge"?
"marge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,410 in our French list, against #8,269 for "marée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #408,243 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marée" and "marge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "majorée vs marée". 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 #408,243 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