Which to use
“marquait” is a verb and “marquis” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #24,669
- “marquait” frequency rank
- #5,582
- “marquis” frequency rank
- 30251
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marquait | marquis |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de marquer. | Seigneur préposé à la garde des marches, des frontières d’un état. |
Where the eye mixes marquait and marquis
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. marquait runs 8 letters (CVCCVVVC) against marquis's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: marquait vs marquis
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marquait is \maʁ.kɛ\ while marquis is \maʁ.ki\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30251, 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\. marquis is at rank #5,582, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.ki\.
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 30251, this pair ranks #311,565 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of marquait vs marquis
Shared letters: aimqru. Private to "marquait": t. Private to "marquis": s.
"marquait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVVC · "marquis" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marquait" for "marquis" ever safe?
Which is more common, "marquait" or "marquis"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "marquait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marquis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #311,565 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marquait" and "marquis" 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 #311,565 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.