meurevsmeurtreWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,941
“meure” frequency rank
#2,484
“meurtre” frequency rank
25425
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meure meurtre
Definition Graphie ancienne de mûre. Homicide volontaire.

Where the eye mixes meure and meurtre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. meure runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against meurtre's 7 (CVVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
meure
7 ch
meurtre

Visual trap between meure and meurtre

A purely visual mix-up. meure (\mœʁ\) and meurtre (\mœʁtʁ\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25425, 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\. meurtre is at rank #2,484, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mœʁtʁ\.

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 25425, this pair ranks #340,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meure vs meurtre

Shared letters: emru. Private to "meure": -. Private to "meurtre": t.

"meure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "meurtre" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meure ← emure · merue · meuer · meurre · mmeure · muere
  • meurtre ← emurtre · merutre · meurrte · meurrtre · meurter · meurtrre · meurttre · meutrre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meure" for "meurtre" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mœʁ\ versus \mœʁtʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "meure" or "meurtre"?
"meurtre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,484 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.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meurtre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #340,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meure" and "meurtre" 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 #340,953 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