margesvsmarsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#10,355
“marges” frequency rank
#426
“mars” frequency rank
10781
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marges mars
Definition Pluriel de marge. Troisième mois de l’année du calendrier grégorien, qui compte 31 jours.

Where the eye mixes marges and mars

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
marges
4 ch
mars

Why the eye confuses marges with mars

A purely visual mix-up. marges (\maʁʒ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10781, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marges is recorded at frequency rank #10,355, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁʒ\. 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 10781, this pair ranks #411,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marges vs mars

Shared letters: amrs. Private to "marges": eg. Private to "mars": -.

"marges" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • margesamrges · magres · maregs · margess · margges · margse · marrges · mmarges
  • marsamrs · marrs · marss · masr · mmars · mras

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marges" for "mars" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\maʁʒ\ versus \maʁs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "marges" or "mars"?
"mars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #426 in our French list, against #10,355 for "marges". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marges" 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 #411,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marges" and "mars" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manies vs marges". 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 #411,686 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