marquévsMartheWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: marqué is a adjective, Marthe is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“marqué” is an adjective and “Marthe” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,046
“marqué” frequency rank
#17,187
“Marthe” frequency rank
19233
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marqué Marthe
Definition Qui frappe la vue, l’attention, qui se fait remarquer, apparent, visible. Sainte mentionnée dans le Nouveau Testament, sœur de Lazare et de Marie de Béthanie.

Where the eye mixes marqué and Marthe

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

6 ch
marqué
6 ch
Marthe

Why the eye confuses marqué with Marthe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marqué is \maʁ.ke\ while Marthe is \maʁt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19233, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marqué is recorded at frequency rank #2,046, classified as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.ke\. Marthe is at rank #17,187, tagged as aname, pronounced \maʁt\.

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 19233, this pair ranks #374,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marqué vs Marthe

Shared letters: amr. Private to "marqué": qué. Private to "Marthe": eht.

"marqué" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "Marthe" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Martheamrthe · marhte · marrthe · marteh · marthhe · martthe · matrhe · mmarthe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marqué" for "Marthe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marqué" is an adjective and "Marthe" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "marqué" or "Marthe" show up more?
"marqué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,046 in our French list, against #17,187 for "Marthe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "marqué" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Marthe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #374,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marqué" and "Marthe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mahé vs Marthe". 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 #374,287 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