marquervsmasquéeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#3,778
“marquer” frequency rank
#33,345
“masquée” frequency rank
37123
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marquer masquée
Definition Distinguer une chose d’une autre au moyen d’une marque. Féminin singulier de masqué.

Where the eye mixes marquer and masquée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
marquer
7 ch
masquée

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marquer is \maʁ.ke\ while masquée is \mas.ke\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37123, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marquer is recorded at frequency rank #3,778, classified as averb, pronounced \maʁ.ke\. masquée is at rank #33,345, tagged as anadj, 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 37123, this pair ranks #264,722 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marquer vs masquée

Shared letters: aemqu. Private to "marquer": r. Private to "masquée": .

"marquer" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "masquée" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marqueramrquer · maqruer · marqeur · marqquer · marquerr · marqure · marrquer · maruqer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marquer" and "masquée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marquer" is a verb and "masquée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "marquer" or "masquée"?
"marquer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,778 in our French list, against #33,345 for "masquée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list