marsvsmdrTell them apart

Quick tell: mars is a noun, mdr is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mars” is a noun and “mdr” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#426
“mars” frequency rank
#9,512
“mdr” frequency rank
9938
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mars mdr
Definition Troisième mois de l’année du calendrier grégorien, qui compte 31 jours. Formule qui est principalement utilisée à l’écrit (sur internet puis par texto) et qui indique que celui qui le note est en train de rire ou est amusé. Mais elle peut également être utilisée pour signaler son étonnement dans une situation inhabituelle.

Where the eye mixes mars and mdr

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mars
3 ch
mdr

Visual trap between mars and mdr

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mars is \maʁs\ while mdr is \ɛm.de.ɛʁ\. 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 (noun vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9938, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mars is recorded at frequency rank #426, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁs\. mdr is at rank #9,512, tagged as anintj, pronounced \ɛm.de.ɛʁ\.

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 9938, this pair ranks #414,857 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mars vs mdr

Shared letters: mr. Private to "mars": as. Private to "mdr": d.

"mars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mdr" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marsamrs · marrs · marss · masr · mmars · mras

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mars" and "mdr" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mars" is a noun and "mdr" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "mars" or "mdr" show up more?
"mars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #426 in our French list, against #9,512 for "mdr". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "mars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mdr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,857 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mars" and "mdr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mdr vs MWh". 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 #414,857 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