marquaitvsmarquantWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: marquait is a verb, marquant is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“marquait” is a verb and “marquant” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,669
“marquait” frequency rank
#9,036
“marquant” frequency rank
33705
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marquait marquant
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de marquer. Qui se fait remarquer par des caractères particuliers, en parlant des personnes ou des choses.

Where the eye mixes marquait and marquant

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

8 ch
marquait
8 ch
marquant

Look-alike desk: marquait vs marquant

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marquait is \maʁ.kɛ\ while marquant is \maʁ.kɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - i in “marquait” becomes n in “marquant”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33705, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marquait is recorded at frequency rank #24,669, classified as averb, pronounced \maʁ.kɛ\. marquant is at rank #9,036, tagged as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.kɑ̃\.

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 33705, this pair ranks #288,850 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marquait vs marquant

Shared letters: amqrtu. Private to "marquait": i. Private to "marquant": n.

"marquait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVVC  ·  "marquant" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marquaitamrquait · maqruait · marqauit · marqquait · marquaitt · marquati · marquiat · marrquait
  • marquantamrquant · maqruant · marqaunt · marqquant · marquannt · marquantt · marquatn · marqunat

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "marquait" and "marquant" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marquait" is a verb and "marquant" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "marquait" vs "marquant" - which ranks higher?
"marquant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,036 in our French list, against #24,669 for "marquait". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "marquait" and "marquant" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marquait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marquant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #288,850 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marquait" and "marquant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marquait vs masquant". 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 #288,850 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