maréevsmarkConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#8,269
“marée” frequency rank
#3,777
“mark” frequency rank
12046
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marée mark
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. Reichsmark.

Where the eye mixes marée and mark

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
marée
4 ch
mark

Why the eye confuses marée with mark

A purely visual mix-up. marée (\ma.ʁe\) and mark (\maʁk\) 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 12046, 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\. mark is at rank #3,777, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁk\.

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 12046, this pair ranks #406,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marée vs mark

Shared letters: amr. Private to "marée": . Private to "mark": k.

"marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "mark" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • markamrk · makr · markk · marrk · mmark · mrak

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "marée" and "mark" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ma.ʁe\ versus \maʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "marée" or "mark"?
"mark" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,777 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.

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 "marée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mark" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #406,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marée" and "mark" 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 #406,800 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