marquaitvsmarquanteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#24,669
“marquait” frequency rank
#29,854
“marquante” frequency rank
54523
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marquait marquante
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de marquer. Féminin singulier de marquant.

Where the eye mixes marquait and marquante

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. marquait runs 8 letters (CVCCVVVC) against marquante's 9 (CVCCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
marquait
9 ch
marquante

Visual trap between marquait and marquante

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marquait is \maʁ.kɛ\ while marquante is \maʁ.kɑ̃t\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54523, 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\. marquante is at rank #29,854, tagged as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.kɑ̃t\.

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 54523, this pair ranks #133,406 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marquait vs marquante

Shared letters: amqrtu. Private to "marquait": i. Private to "marquante": en.

"marquait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVVC  ·  "marquante" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marquaitamrquait · maqruait · marqauit · marqquait · marquaitt · marquati · marquiat · marrquait
  • marquanteamrquante · maqruante · marqaunte · marqquante · marquanet · marquannte · marquantte · marquatne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "marquait" and "marquante" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marquait" is a verb and "marquante" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "marquait" or "marquante" show up more?
"marquait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,669 in our French list, against #29,854 for "marquante". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "marquait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marquante" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #133,406 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marquait" and "marquante" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marquante 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 #133,406 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