mer

\mɛʁ\

/\mɛʁ\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“mer” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #657) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#657
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Vaste étendue d’eau salée qui baigne les diverses parties de la terre.

Corpus desk

Index FR-mer · mer · French

mer · rank #657 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #657
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH lien

Nearest frequency peer: lien (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « mer »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « mer » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

mer vs mm
33% similar
mer vs mi
33% similar
mer vs MR
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for mer
PropertyValue
Headwordmer
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\mɛʁ\
Letters3
Frequency rank#657
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « mer »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).merse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « lien » (#656), « photos » (#658), « image » (#655). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « mer » est au #657. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for mer is neighbouring look-alikes ("mm", "mi", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \mɛʁ\. Frequency #657 among 5,038 “M” headwords. 6 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

No generated misspelling entries exist for mer in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mm", "mi", "MR", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is mer, spelled M-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Vaste étendue d’eau salée qui baigne les diverses parties de la terre.
  2. 2
    Son état pour la navigation.
  3. 3
    Grande étendue de liquide.
  4. 4
    Vaste étendue.
  5. 5
    Meuble représentant une étendue liquide dans les armoiries. Il s’agit d'une zone colorée couvrant le tiers inférieur du champ (donc mouvant de la pointe) avec une ligne de découpe supérieure ondée rappelant les vagues ainsi que d’ombrages ou lignes également ondées sur la zone colorée. On la dit ombrée quand les vagues sont représentées d’un autre émail.
  6. 6
    Plaine basaltique grande et sombre de la Lune.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how mer appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Le flux et le reflux de la mer.
  2. Poisson, bain de mer.

Antonyms

terre

This word in other languages

sea(English)mar(Español)Meer(Deutsch)mar(Português)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "mer"?
"mer" is spelled M-E-R. The IPA pronunciation is \mɛʁ\.
What does "mer" mean?
As a noun, "mer" means: Vaste étendue d’eau salée qui baigne les diverses parties de la terre.
What words are commonly confused with "mer"?
"mer" is commonly confused with "mm", "mi", "MR". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mer"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mer" is \mɛʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mer" come from?
"mer" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mer", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

ami#665met#631vas#593six#592

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list