maréevsmarsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#8,269
“marée” frequency rank
#426
“mars” frequency rank
8695
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marée mars
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. Troisième mois de l’année du calendrier grégorien, qui compte 31 jours.

Where the eye mixes marée and mars

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

5 ch
marée
4 ch
mars

Visual trap between marée and mars

A purely visual mix-up. marée (\ma.ʁe\) and mars (\maʁs\) 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 8695, 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\. mars is at rank #426, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁs\.

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 8695, this pair ranks #419,140 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marée vs mars

Shared letters: amr. Private to "marée": . Private to "mars": s.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marsamrs · marrs · marss · masr · mmars · mras

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marée" and "mars" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ma.ʁe\ versus \maʁs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "marée" vs "mars" - which ranks higher?
"mars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #426 in our French list, against #8,269 for "marée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "marée" and "mars" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mars" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #419,140 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marée" and "mars" 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 #419,140 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