maréevsmorteConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#8,269
“marée” frequency rank
#1,877
“morte” frequency rank
10146
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marée morte
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. Femme décédée ; défunte.

Where the eye mixes marée and morte

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

5 ch
marée
5 ch
morte

Why the eye confuses marée with morte

A purely visual mix-up. marée (\ma.ʁe\) and morte (\mɔʁt\) 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 10146, 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\. morte is at rank #1,877, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁt\.

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 10146, this pair ranks #414,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marée vs morte

Shared letters: emr. Private to "marée": . Private to "morte": ot.

"marée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "morte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mortemmorte · morrte · mortte · motre · mrote · omrte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marée" and "morte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ma.ʁe\ versus \mɔʁt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "marée" or "morte"?
"morte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,877 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.

Useful next steps

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 "morte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marée" and "morte" 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 #414,048 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