Which to use
“marteau” is a noun and “martelé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #8,423
- “marteau” frequency rank
- #37,914
- “martelé” frequency rank
- 46337
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marteau | martelé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Outil de fer qui a un manche, ordinairement de bois, et qui est propre à battre, forger, cogner, enfoncer. | Qualifie une médaille dont on a effacé le revers, qui était commun, pour frapper à la place un revers plus rare |
Where the eye mixes marteau and martelé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. marteau (CVCCVVV) and martelé (CVCCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses marteau with martelé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marteau is \maʁ.to\ while martelé is \maʁ.tə.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46337, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marteau is recorded at frequency rank #8,423, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.to\. martelé is at rank #37,914, tagged as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.tə.le\.
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 46337, this pair ranks #195,778 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of marteau vs martelé
Shared letters: aemrt. Private to "marteau": u. Private to "martelé": lé.
"marteau" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVV · "martelé" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- marteau ← amrteau · maretau · marrteau · martaeu · marteua · martteau · matreau · mmarteau
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marteau" for "martelé" ever safe?
Frequency check: "marteau" vs "martelé" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "marteau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "martelé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #195,778 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marteau" and "martelé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "martelé vs marteler". 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 #195,778 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.