marksvsmursTell them apart

Which to use

“marks” and “murs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#19,341
“marks” frequency rank
#2,288
“murs” frequency rank
21629
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marks murs
Definition Pluriel de mark. Pluriel de mur.

Where the eye mixes marks and murs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
marks
4 ch
murs

Look-alike desk: marks vs murs

A purely visual mix-up. marks (\maʁk\) and murs (\myʁ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21629, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marks is recorded at frequency rank #19,341, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁk\. murs is at rank #2,288, tagged as anoun, pronounced \myʁ\.

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 21629, this pair ranks #362,197 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marks vs murs

Shared letters: mrs. Private to "marks": ak. Private to "murs": u.

"marks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "murs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marksamrks · makrs · markks · markss · marrks · marsk · mmarks · mraks
  • mursmmurs · mrus · murrs · murss · musr · umrs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "marks" and "murs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\maʁk\ versus \myʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "marks" vs "murs" - which ranks higher?
"murs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,288 in our French list, against #19,341 for "marks". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "marks" and "murs" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marks" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "murs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #362,197 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marks" and "murs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "macros vs marks". 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 #362,197 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list