Which to use
“meuh” is an onomatopoeia and “meurs” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #45,732
- “meuh” frequency rank
- #7,342
- “meurs” frequency rank
- 53074
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | meuh | meurs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Imitation du bruit produit par les bovins (meuglement). | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de mourir. |
Where the eye mixes meuh and meurs
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. meuh runs 4 letters (CVVC) against meurs's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between meuh and meurs
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meuh is \mø\ while meurs is \mœʁ\. 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 (onomatopoeia vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53074, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
meuh is recorded at frequency rank #45,732, classified as anonomatopoeia, pronounced \mø\. 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 53074, this pair ranks #143,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of meuh vs meurs
Shared letters: emu. Private to "meuh": h. Private to "meurs": rs.
"meuh" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "meurs" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "meuh" for "meurs" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "meuh" or "meurs" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "meuh" 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 #143,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "meuh" and "meurs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meuh 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 #143,269 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.