meurevsmeurentWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#22,941
“meure” frequency rank
#6,978
“meurent” frequency rank
29919
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meure meurent
Definition Graphie ancienne de mûre. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de mourir.

Same sound, different letters: meure vs meurent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. meure runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against meurent's 7 (CVVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
meure
7 ch
meurent

Same sound, different spelling - meure / meurent

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: meure and meurent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mœʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “meure” sits inside “meurent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29919, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meure is recorded at frequency rank #22,941, classified as anoun, pronounced \mœʁ\. meurent is at rank #6,978, 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 29919, this pair ranks #313,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of meure vs meurent

Shared letters: emru. Private to "meure": -. Private to "meurent": nt.

"meure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "meurent" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meure ← emure · merue · meuer · meurre · mmeure · muere
  • meurent ← emurent · meruent · meuernt · meurennt · meurentt · meuretn · meurnet · meurrent

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meure" and "meurent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meure" is a noun and "meurent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "meure" vs "meurent" - which ranks higher?
"meurent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,978 in our French list, against #22,941 for "meure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "meure" / "meurent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meurent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #313,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meure" and "meurent" 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 #313,667 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