maurevsmutéWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#29,856
“maure” frequency rank
#24,292
“muté” frequency rank
54148
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maure muté
Definition Qui concerne les Maures ou leur culture. Se dit d’un vin dont la fermentation a été stoppée par l’ajout d’alcool ou d'acide sulfureux lui permettant ainsi de garder des sucres résiduels.

Where the eye mixes maure and muté

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
maure
4 ch
muté

Visual trap between maure and muté

A purely visual mix-up. maure (\mɔʁ\) and muté (\my.te\) 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 54148, 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\. muté is at rank #24,292, tagged as anadj, pronounced \my.te\.

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 54148, this pair ranks #135,947 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maure vs muté

Shared letters: mu. Private to "maure": aer. Private to "muté": .

"maure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "muté" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maureamure · marue · mauer · maurre · mmaure · muare

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maure" and "muté" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mɔʁ\ versus \my.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "maure" vs "muté" - which ranks higher?
"muté" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,292 in our French list, against #29,856 for "maure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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 "muté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #135,947 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maure" and "muté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magret vs maure". 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 #135,947 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