Which to use
“marquis” and “marquise” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,582
- “marquis” frequency rank
- #16,412
- “marquise” frequency rank
- 21994
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marquis | marquise |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Seigneur préposé à la garde des marches, des frontières d’un état. | Épouse ou veuve d’un marquis. |
Where the eye mixes marquis and marquise
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. marquis runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against marquise's 8 (CVCCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between marquis and marquise
A purely visual mix-up. marquis (\maʁ.ki\) and marquise (\maʁ.kiz\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “marquis” sits inside “marquise”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21994, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marquis is recorded at frequency rank #5,582, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.ki\. marquise is at rank #16,412, tagged as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.kiz\.
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 21994, this pair ranks #360,349 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of marquis vs marquise
Shared letters: aimqrsu. Private to "marquis": -. Private to "marquise": e.
"marquis" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC · "marquise" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marquis" for "marquise" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "marquis" or "marquise" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "marquis" and "marquise" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "marquis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marquise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #360,349 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marquis" and "marquise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marquise vs marquises". 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 #360,349 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.