marquévsmasquerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#2,046
“marqué” frequency rank
#13,210
“masquer” frequency rank
15256
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marqué masquer
Definition Qui frappe la vue, l’attention, qui se fait remarquer, apparent, visible. Mettre un masque à quelqu’un.

Where the eye mixes marqué and masquer

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

6 ch
marqué
7 ch
masquer

Why the eye confuses marqué with masquer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marqué is \maʁ.ke\ while masquer is \mas.ke\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15256, 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\. masquer is at rank #13,210, tagged as averb, pronounced \mas.ke\.

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 15256, this pair ranks #393,146 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marqué vs masquer

Shared letters: amqru. Private to "marqué": é. Private to "masquer": es.

"marqué" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "masquer" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • masqueramsquer · maqsuer · masqeur · masqquer · masquerr · masqure · massquer · masuqer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "marqué" and "masquer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marqué" is an adjective and "masquer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "marqué" vs "masquer" - which ranks higher?
"marqué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,046 in our French list, against #13,210 for "masquer". 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 "masquer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #393,146 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marqué" and "masquer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "masquent vs masquer". 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 #393,146 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