merahvsmerleTell them apart

Which to use

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

#23,609
“merah” frequency rank
#22,940
“merle” frequency rank
46549
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature merah merle
Definition Rouge. Type de coloration de pelage chez le chien. Une robe merle est sombre avec des taches claires peu distinctes qui peuvent être associées à d’autres motifs comme certaines dilutions (couleurs foie) ou une couleur bringée.

Letter map: merah vs merle

Shared letters muted; letters that set merah and merle apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. merah (CVCVC) and merle (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
merah
5 ch
merle

Spelling & dictionary notes on merah vs merle

merah and merle are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

merah is recorded at frequency rank #23,609, classified as anadj. merle is at rank #22,940, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɛʁl\.

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 46549, this pair ranks #194,030 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of merah vs merle

Shared letters: emr. Private to "merah": ah. Private to "merle": l.

"merah" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "merle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • merahemrah · mearh · merahh · merha · merrah · mmerah · mreah
  • merleemrle · melre · merel · merlle · merrle · mmerle · mrele

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "merah" for "merle" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "merah" vs "merle" - which ranks higher?
"merle" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,940 in our French list, against #23,609 for "merah". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "merah" and "merle".

  • Full dictionary entry for "merah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "merle" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,030 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "merah" and "merle" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "merah vs Méry". 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 #194,030 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