mesurevsmeureWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#520
“mesure” frequency rank
#22,941
“meure” frequency rank
23461
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mesure meure
Definition Dimension. Graphie ancienne de mûre.

Where the eye mixes mesure and meure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. mesure runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against meure's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
mesure
5 ch
meure

Visual trap between mesure and meure

A purely visual mix-up. mesure (\mə.zyʁ\) and meure (\mœʁ\) 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 23461, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mesure is recorded at frequency rank #520, classified as anoun, pronounced \mə.zyʁ\. meure is at rank #22,941, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mœʁ\.

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 23461, this pair ranks #352,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mesure vs meure

Shared letters: emru. Private to "mesure": s. Private to "meure": -.

"mesure" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "meure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mesure ← emsure · mesrue · messure · mesuer · mesurre · meusre · mmesure · mseure
  • meure ← emure · merue · meuer · meurre · mmeure · muere

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mesure" and "meure" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mə.zyʁ\ versus \mœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "mesure" vs "meure" - which ranks higher?
"mesure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #520 in our French list, against #22,941 for "meure". 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 "mesure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #352,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mesure" and "meure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Méry vs meure". 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 #352,345 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