mêlervsmeurWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mêler is a verb, meur is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#9,203
“mêler” frequency rank
#43,010
“meur” frequency rank
52213
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mêler meur
Definition Mettre ensemble des choses et les confondre. Mûr.

Letter map: mêler vs meur

Shared letters muted; letters that set mêler and meur apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mêler runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against meur's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
mêler
4 ch
meur

Part-of-speech tell for mêler / meur

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mêler is averb and meuranadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52213, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mêler is recorded at frequency rank #9,203, classified as averb, pronounced \me.le\. meur is at rank #43,010, tagged as anadj.

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 52213, this pair ranks #149,296 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mêler vs meur

Shared letters: emr. Private to "mêler": lê. Private to "meur": u.

"mêler" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "meur" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meur ← emur · meru · meurr · mmeur

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mêler" for "meur" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mêler" is a verb and "meur" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mêler" vs "meur" - which ranks higher?
"mêler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,203 in our French list, against #43,010 for "meur". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "mêler" vs "meur" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mêler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #149,296 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mêler" and "meur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meur vs mud". 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 #149,296 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