mervsMeyerConfusable pair

Quick tell: mer is a noun, Meyer is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mer” is a noun and “Meyer” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#657
“mer” frequency rank
#14,086
“Meyer” frequency rank
14743
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mer Meyer
Definition Vaste étendue d’eau salée qui baigne les diverses parties de la terre. Nom de famille allemand, répandu en Alsace et en Lorraine (surtout en Moselle), nom de famille néerlandais.

Letter map: mer vs Meyer

Shared letters muted; letters that set mer and Meyer apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
mer
5 ch
Meyer

Role in the sentence - mer and Meyer

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mer is anoun and Meyeraname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14743, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mer is recorded at frequency rank #657, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\. Meyer is at rank #14,086, tagged as aname.

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 14743, this pair ranks #395,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mer vs Meyer

Shared letters: emr. Private to "mer": -. Private to "Meyer": y.

"mer" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "Meyer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Meyeremyer · meeyr · meyerr · meyre · meyyer · mmeyer · myeer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mer" and "Meyer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mer" is a noun and "Meyer" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "mer" or "Meyer" show up more?
"mer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #657 in our French list, against #14,086 for "Meyer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mer" and "Meyer".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Meyer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mer" and "Meyer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Meier vs Meyer". 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 #395,399 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