maurevsmeutreTell them apart

Quick tell: maure is a adjective, meutre is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maure” is an adjective and “meutre” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,856
“maure” frequency rank
#48,664
“meutre” frequency rank
78520
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maure meutre
Definition Qui concerne les Maures ou leur culture. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de meutern.

Where the eye mixes maure and meutre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. maure runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against meutre's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
maure
6 ch
meutre

Visual trap between maure and meutre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maure is \mɔʁ\ while meutre is \ˈmɔɪ̯tʁə\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78520, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maure is recorded at frequency rank #29,856, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɔʁ\. meutre is at rank #48,664, tagged as averb, pronounced \ˈmɔɪ̯tʁə\.

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 78520, this pair ranks #25,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maure vs meutre

Shared letters: emru. Private to "maure": a. Private to "meutre": t.

"maure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "meutre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maureamure · marue · mauer · maurre · mmaure · muare
  • meutreemutre · meture · meurte · meuter · meuttre · mmeutre · muetre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maure" and "meutre" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maure" is an adjective and "meutre" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "maure" or "meutre" show up more?
"maure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,856 in our French list, against #48,664 for "meutre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meutre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maure" and "meutre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meurtrie vs meutre". 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 #25,531 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