Which to use
“mercy” and “mères” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #24,673
- “mercy” frequency rank
- #4,253
- “mères” frequency rank
- 28926
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mercy | mères |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Miséricorde. | Pluriel de mère. |
Where the eye mixes mercy and mères
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses mercy with mères
A purely visual mix-up. mercy (\ˈmɝ.si\) and mères (\mɛʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28926, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mercy is recorded at frequency rank #24,673, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmɝ.si\. mères is at rank #4,253, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\.
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 28926, this pair ranks #319,791 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of mercy vs mères
Shared letters: emr. Private to "mercy": cy. Private to "mères": sè.
"mercy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "mères" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- mercy ← emrcy · mecry · merccy · mercyy · merrcy · meryc · mmercy · mrecy
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mercy" and "mères" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "mercy" or "mères" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "mercy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mères" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #319,791 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mercy" and "mères" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mercy 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 #319,791 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.