maturevsmûreWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mature is a adjective, mûre is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mature” is an adjective and “mûre” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,039
“mature” frequency rank
#22,950
“mûre” frequency rank
31989
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mature mûre
Definition Mûr, qui fait preuve de maturité (morale et psychologique). Fruit composé comestible des mûriers (Morus) de couleur d’abord blanchâtre, puis rouge et enfin noire à maturité. Il est composé de petites baies globuleuses formées par le périanthe devenu charnu et portant un petit akène qui est le vrai fruit, et accolées les unes aux autres en épi.

Where the eye mixes mature and mûre

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

6 ch
mature
4 ch
mûre

Look-alike desk: mature vs mûre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mature is \ma.tyʁ\ while mûre is \myʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31989, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mature is recorded at frequency rank #9,039, classified as anadj, pronounced \ma.tyʁ\. mûre is at rank #22,950, 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 31989, this pair ranks #300,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mature vs mûre

Shared letters: emr. Private to "mature": atu. Private to "mûre": û.

"mature" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "mûre" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • matureamture · matrue · matture · matuer · maturre · mautre · mmature · mtaure

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mature" and "mûre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mature" is an adjective and "mûre" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mature" vs "mûre" - which ranks higher?
"mature" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,039 in our French list, against #22,950 for "mûre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mature" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mûre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #300,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mature" and "mûre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mud vs mûre". 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 #300,282 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