maréevsMèreTell them apart

Which to use

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

#8,269
“marée” frequency rank
#292
“Mère” frequency rank
8561
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marée Mère
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. Nom donné à la Vierge Marie.

Where the eye mixes marée and Mère

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

5 ch
marée
4 ch
Mère

Look-alike desk: marée vs Mère

A purely visual mix-up. marée (\ma.ʁe\) and Mère (\mɛʁ\) 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 8561, 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\. Mère is at rank #292, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\.

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 8561, this pair ranks #419,611 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marée vs Mère

Shared letters: emr. Private to "marée": . Private to "Mère": è.

"marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "Mère" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marée" and "Mère" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ma.ʁe\ versus \mɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "marée" or "Mère" show up more?
"Mère" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #292 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.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mère" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #419,611 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marée" and "Mère" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "majorée vs marée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #419,611 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