Which to use
“mégarde” and “merde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #43,029
- “mégarde” frequency rank
- #481
- “merde” frequency rank
- 43510
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mégarde | merde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | (Rarement employé sans la préposition « par ») Erreur d’inattention, étourderie. | Excrément de personne ou d’animal. |
Where the eye mixes mégarde and merde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mégarde runs 7 letters (CVCVCCV) against merde's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: mégarde vs merde
A purely visual mix-up. mégarde (\me.ɡaʁd\) and merde (\mɛʁd\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43510, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mégarde is recorded at frequency rank #43,029, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.ɡaʁd\. merde is at rank #481, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁd\.
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 43510, this pair ranks #217,506 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of mégarde vs merde
Shared letters: demr. Private to "mégarde": agé. Private to "merde": -.
"mégarde" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV · "merde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- merde ← emrde · medre · merdde · mered · merrde · mmerde · mrede
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "mégarde" for "merde" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "mégarde" or "merde" show up more?
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 "mégarde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "merde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #217,506 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mégarde" and "merde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mégane vs mégarde". 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 #217,506 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.