médusevsmeureWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,098
“méduse” frequency rank
#22,941
“meure” frequency rank
49039
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature méduse meure
Definition Personne laide et repoussante. Graphie ancienne de mûre.

Where the eye mixes méduse and meure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. méduse runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against meure's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
méduse
5 ch
meure

Why the eye confuses méduse with meure

A purely visual mix-up. méduse (\me.dyz\) and meure (\mœʁ\) 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 49039, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

méduse is recorded at frequency rank #26,098, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.dyz\. meure is at rank #22,941, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mœʁ\.

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 49039, this pair ranks #173,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of méduse vs meure

Shared letters: emu. Private to "méduse": dsé. Private to "meure": r.

"méduse" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "meure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meure ← emure · merue · meuer · meurre · mmeure · muere

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "méduse" and "meure" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\me.dyz\ versus \mœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "méduse" or "meure"?
"meure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,941 in our French list, against #26,098 for "méduse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "méduse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "méduse" and "meure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "méduse vs meneuse". 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 #173,948 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