meurvsmuerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#43,010
“meur” frequency rank
#48,671
“muer” frequency rank
91681
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meur muer
Definition Mûr. Changer de poil, de plumes, de peau, etc., en parlant des animaux.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set meur and muer apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
meur
4 ch
muer

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: meur is anadjective and mueraverb. On the page they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (eu ↔ ue) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91681, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meur is recorded at frequency rank #43,010, classified as anadj. 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 91681, this pair ranks #3,626 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of meur vs muer

Shared letters: emru. Private to "meur": -. Private to "muer": -.

"meur" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "muer" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meuremur · meru · meurr · mmeur
  • muermmuer · muerr · umer

Frequency comparison

meur#43,010
muer#48,671

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meur" and "muer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meur" is an adjective and "muer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "meur" or "muer"?
"meur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,010 in our French list, against #48,671 for "muer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering meur vs muer

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “meur”; for a verb, it's “muer”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “meur” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list