merde

/\mɛʁd\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#481

in French word usage

Misspellings

7

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

merde is aFrenchnoun. It means: Excrément de personne ou d’animal. Pronounced \mɛʁd\. It ranks #481 in French word frequency. Often confused with Mère and mode.

Key facts for merde
PropertyValue
Headwordmerde
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\mɛʁd\
Letters5
Frequency rank#481
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of merde in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for merde is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \mɛʁd\. Corpus data places it at rank #481 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for merde, with forms such as "emrde", "medre", and "merdde". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Mère", "mode", "more", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is merde, spelled M-E-R-D-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Excrément de personne ou d’animal.
  2. 2
    Chose sans valeur ; objet de mauvaise qualité.
  3. 3
    Personne méprisable, sans valeur.
  4. 4
    Situation inextricable.
  5. 5
    Fait désagréable, incommodité, incident de la vie.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: emrde,medre,merdde,mered,merrde,mmerde,mrede

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for merde

Misspelling Variants of "merde"

emrde5medre5merdde6mered5merrde6mmerde6mrede5
Misspelling Variants of "merde"

Frequency rank: #481 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "merde"?
"merde" is spelled M-E-R-D-E. The IPA pronunciation is \mɛʁd\.
What does "merde" mean?
As a noun, "merde" means: Excrément de personne ou d’animal.
What words are commonly confused with "merde"?
"merde" is commonly confused with "Mère", "mode", "more". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "merde"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "merde" is \mɛʁd\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "merde" come from?
"merde" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter M in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.