membrevsmeutreWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#1,034
“membre” frequency rank
#48,664
“meutre” frequency rank
49698
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature membre meutre
Definition Partie extérieure du corps d’un être humain ou d’un animal, distinguée de toutes les autres par quelque fonction particulière. Note d’usage : Se dit principalement des bras et des jambes ; ne se dit jamais de la tête. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de meutern.

Where the eye mixes membre and meutre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. membre (CVCCCV) and meutre (CVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
membre
6 ch
meutre

Why the eye confuses membre with meutre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: membre is \mɑ̃bʁ\ while meutre is \ˈmɔɪ̯tʁə\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49698, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

membre is recorded at frequency rank #1,034, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃bʁ\. 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 49698, this pair ranks #168,548 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of membre vs meutre

Shared letters: emr. Private to "membre": b. Private to "meutre": tu.

"membre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "meutre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • membre ← emmbre · mebmre · membbre · membrre · memmbre · memrbe · mmebre · mmembre
  • meutre ← emutre · meture · meurte · meuter · meuttre · mmeutre · muetre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "membre" for "meutre" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "membre" is a noun and "meutre" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "membre" or "meutre" show up more?
"membre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,034 in our French list, against #48,664 for "meutre". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "membre" 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 #168,548 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "membre" 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 #168,548 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