Which to use
“marée” and “mate” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #8,269
- “marée” frequency rank
- #13,837
- “mate” frequency rank
- 22106
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marée | mate |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Endroit, dans Paris, où se tenait le conseil de filous. |
Where the eye mixes marée and mate
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between marée and mate
A purely visual mix-up. marée (\ma.ʁe\) and mate (\mat\) 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 22106, 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\. mate is at rank #13,837, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mat\.
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 22106, this pair ranks #359,783 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of marée vs mate
Shared letters: aem. Private to "marée": ré. Private to "mate": t.
"marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "mate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- mate ← amte · maet · matte · mmate · mtae
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marée" for "mate" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "marée" or "mate" show up more?
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 "mate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #359,783 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marée" and "mate" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mate vs mito". 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 #359,783 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.