marshvsmerahConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#28,247
“marsh” frequency rank
#23,609
“merah” frequency rank
51856
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marsh merah
Definition Marais, marécage. Rouge.

Letter map: marsh vs merah

Shared letters muted; letters that set marsh and merah apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. marsh (CVCCC) and merah (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
marsh
5 ch
merah

Role in the sentence - marsh and merah

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: marsh is anoun and merahanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51856, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marsh is recorded at frequency rank #28,247, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑɹʃ\. merah is at rank #23,609, tagged as anadj.

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 51856, this pair ranks #151,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marsh vs merah

Shared letters: ahmr. Private to "marsh": s. Private to "merah": e.

"marsh" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "merah" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marsh ← amrsh · marhs · marrsh · marshh · marssh · masrh · mmarsh · mrash
  • merah ← emrah · mearh · merahh · merha · merrah · mmerah · mreah

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marsh" for "merah" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marsh" is a noun and "merah" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "marsh" or "merah" show up more?
"merah" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,609 in our French list, against #28,247 for "marsh". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "marsh" vs "merah" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marsh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "merah" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marsh" and "merah" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Marcy vs marsh". 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 #151,926 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