meuvsmeursConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#44,580
“meu” frequency rank
#7,342
“meurs” frequency rank
51922
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meu meurs
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe movoir. Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de mourir.

Where the eye mixes meu and meurs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. meu runs 3 letters (CVV) against meurs's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
meu
5 ch
meurs

Look-alike desk: meu vs meurs

A purely visual mix-up. meu (\məˈy\) and meurs (\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 2 extra letter(s) - “meu” sits inside “meurs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51922, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meu is recorded at frequency rank #44,580, classified as averb, pronounced \məˈy\. meurs is at rank #7,342, tagged as averb, 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 51922, this pair ranks #151,445 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of meu vs meurs

Shared letters: emu. Private to "meu": -. Private to "meurs": rs.

"meu" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "meurs" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meurs ← emurs · merus · meurrs · meurss · meusr · mmeurs · muers

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meu" and "meurs" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\məˈy\ versus \mœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "meu" vs "meurs" - which ranks higher?
"meurs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,342 in our French list, against #44,580 for "meu". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "meu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meurs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,445 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meu" and "meurs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meu vs MWh". 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 #151,445 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