MeiervsmêléWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Meier is a noun, mêlé is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49,216
“Meier” frequency rank
#13,013
“mêlé” frequency rank
62229
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Meier mêlé
Definition Métayer, à l'origine, fonctionnaire d'un propriétaire noble ou ecclésiastique qui avait en charge l'administration et la gestion de la ferme principale. Plus tard, locataire d'une grande exploitation agricole. majordome. Mélangé, entremêlé, embrouillé, désordonné.

Where the eye mixes Meier and mêlé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

5 ch
Meier
4 ch
mêlé

Visual trap between Meier and mêlé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Meier is \maɪ̯ɐ\ while mêlé is \mɛ.le\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62229, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Meier is recorded at frequency rank #49,216, classified as anoun, pronounced \maɪ̯ɐ\. mêlé is at rank #13,013, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɛ.le\.

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 62229, this pair ranks #88,202 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Meier vs mêlé

Shared letters: m. Private to "Meier": eir. Private to "mêlé": léê.

"Meier" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "mêlé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Meieremier · meeir · meierr · meire · mieer · mmeier

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Meier" and "mêlé" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Meier" is a noun and "mêlé" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Meier" or "mêlé"?
"mêlé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,013 in our French list, against #49,216 for "Meier". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Meier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mêlé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #88,202 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Meier" and "mêlé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Meier vs muer". 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 #88,202 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