metvsmuerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: met is a noun, muer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“met” is a noun and “muer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#631
“met” frequency rank
#48,671
“muer” frequency rank
49302
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature met muer
Definition Unité de mesure du métabolisme énergétique, équivalant à 50 kilocalories par mètre carré de surface corporelle par heure, soit environ 58 watts par mètre carré. Son symbole est met. Changer de poil, de plumes, de peau, etc., en parlant des animaux.

Where the eye mixes met and muer

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

3 ch
met
4 ch
muer

Visual trap between met and muer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: met is \mɛt\ while muer is \mɥe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49302, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

met is recorded at frequency rank #631, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛt\. muer is at rank #48,671, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɥe\.

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 49302, this pair ranks #171,794 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of met vs muer

Shared letters: em. Private to "met": t. Private to "muer": ru.

"met" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "muer" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • muermmuer · muerr · umer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "met" and "muer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "met" is a noun and "muer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "met" vs "muer" - which ranks higher?
"met" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #631 in our French list, against #48,671 for "muer". 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 "met" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #171,794 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "met" and "muer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mud vs muer". 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 #171,794 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