marsvsmlsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“mars” and “mls” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#426
“mars” frequency rank
#24,677
“mls” frequency rank
25103
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mars mls
Definition Troisième mois de l’année du calendrier grégorien, qui compte 31 jours. Friandise, gourmandise, chose bonne à manger.

Where the eye mixes mars and mls

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

4 ch
mars
3 ch
mls

Visual trap between mars and mls

A purely visual mix-up. mars (\maʁs\) and mls (\ml̩s\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25103, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mars is recorded at frequency rank #426, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁs\. mls is at rank #24,677, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ml̩s\.

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 25103, this pair ranks #342,799 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mars vs mls

Shared letters: ms. Private to "mars": ar. Private to "mls": l.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mars" and "mls" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\maʁs\ versus \ml̩s\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "mars" or "mls" show up more?
"mars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #426 in our French list, against #24,677 for "mls". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #342,799 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mars" and "mls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mls 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 #342,799 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