marrervsmaureWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#15,677
“marrer” frequency rank
#29,856
“maure” frequency rank
45533
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marrer maure
Definition Labourer la terre avec une marre. Qui concerne les Maures ou leur culture.

Where the eye mixes marrer and maure

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

6 ch
marrer
5 ch
maure

Visual trap between marrer and maure

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marrer is \ma.ʁe\ while maure is \mɔʁ\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45533, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marrer is recorded at frequency rank #15,677, classified as averb, pronounced \ma.ʁe\. maure is at rank #29,856, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɔʁ\.

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 45533, this pair ranks #202,028 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marrer vs maure

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "marrer": -. Private to "maure": u.

"marrer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "maure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marreramrrer · marer · marerr · marrerr · marrre · mmarrer · mrarer
  • maureamure · marue · mauer · maurre · mmaure · muare

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marrer" and "maure" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marrer" is a verb and "maure" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "marrer" or "maure" show up more?
"marrer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,677 in our French list, against #29,856 for "maure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "marrer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #202,028 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marrer" and "maure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magret vs maure". 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 #202,028 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