MèrevsmueTell them apart

Which to use

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

#292
“Mère” frequency rank
#19,916
“mue” frequency rank
20208
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mère mue
Definition Nom donné à la Vierge Marie. Changement de poil, de plumes, de peau, de cornes, etc., qui arrive aux animaux, ou tous les ans, ou à certaines époques de leur vie.

Where the eye mixes Mère and mue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Mère
3 ch
mue

Visual trap between Mère and mue

A purely visual mix-up. Mère (\mɛʁ\) and mue (\my\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20208, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mère is recorded at frequency rank #292, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ\. mue is at rank #19,916, tagged as anoun, pronounced \my\.

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 20208, this pair ranks #369,436 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Mère vs mue

Shared letters: em. Private to "Mère": . Private to "mue": u.

"Mère" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mue" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Mère" and "mue" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɛʁ\ versus \my\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Mère" vs "mue" - which ranks higher?
"Mère" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #292 in our French list, against #19,916 for "mue". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Mère" and "mue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mère" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #369,436 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mère" and "mue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mue vs MWh". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #369,436 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