marsvsmûresConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#426
“mars” frequency rank
#25,411
“mûres” frequency rank
25837
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mars mûres
Definition Troisième mois de l’année du calendrier grégorien, qui compte 31 jours. Féminin pluriel de mûr.

Where the eye mixes mars and mûres

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mars
5 ch
mûres

Visual trap between mars and mûres

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mars is \maʁs\ while mûres is \myʁ\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25837, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mars is recorded at frequency rank #426, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁs\. mûres is at rank #25,411, tagged as anadj, pronounced \myʁ\.

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 25837, this pair ranks #338,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mars vs mûres

Shared letters: mrs. Private to "mars": a. Private to "mûres": .

"mars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mûres" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mars" for "mûres" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mars" is a noun and "mûres" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mars" or "mûres"?
"mars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #426 in our French list, against #25,411 for "mûres". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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 "mûres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #338,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mars" and "mûres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "muer vs mûres". 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 #338,586 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