Which to use
“marée” and “merde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #8,269
- “marée” frequency rank
- #481
- “merde” frequency rank
- 8750
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marée | merde |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Excrément de personne ou d’animal. |
Where the eye mixes marée and merde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between marée and merde
A purely visual mix-up. marée (\ma.ʁe\) and merde (\mɛʁd\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8750, 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\. merde is at rank #481, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁd\.
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 8750, this pair ranks #418,976 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of marée vs merde
Shared letters: emr. Private to "marée": aé. Private to "merde": d.
"marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "merde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- merde ← emrde · medre · merdde · mered · merrde · mmerde · mrede
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "marée" and "merde" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "marée" or "merde" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "marée" and "merde" 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 "merde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #418,976 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marée" and "merde" 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 #418,976 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.