Which to use
“maire” and “mers” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,142
- “maire” frequency rank
- #8,271
- “mers” frequency rank
- 9413
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maire | mers |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Premier officier municipal d’une commune, municipalité ou arrondissement, élu, en France, par les conseillers municipaux à l’issue des élections municipales, en Suisse, soit directement par le corps électoral (Jura), soit chaque année pour une année par le conseil municipal (Genève). | Pluriel de mer. |
Same sound, different letters: maire vs mers
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 2 letters. maire runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against mers's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - maire / mers
This is the hard kind. maire and mers are pronounced identically (\mɛʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9413, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maire is recorded at frequency rank #1,142, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\. mers is at rank #8,271, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\.
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 9413, this pair ranks #416,749 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of maire vs mers
Shared letters: emr. Private to "maire": ai. Private to "mers": s.
"maire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "mers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maire" and "mers" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "maire" or "mers" show up more?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "maire" / "mers". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "maire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #416,749 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maire" and "mers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "memo vs mers". 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 #416,749 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.