meurtrevsmeurtresWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,484
“meurtre” frequency rank
#7,085
“meurtres” frequency rank
9569
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meurtre meurtres
Definition Homicide volontaire. Pluriel de meurtre.

Same sound, different letters: meurtre vs meurtres

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. meurtre runs 7 letters (CVVCCCV) against meurtres's 8 (CVVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
meurtre
8 ch
meurtres

Ear matches; page differs - meurtre and meurtres

This is the hard kind. meurtre and meurtres are pronounced identically (\mœʁtʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “meurtre” sits inside “meurtres”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9569, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meurtre is recorded at frequency rank #2,484, classified as anoun, pronounced \mœʁtʁ\. meurtres is at rank #7,085, 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 9569, this pair ranks #416,191 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meurtre vs meurtres

Shared letters: emrtu. Private to "meurtre": -. Private to "meurtres": s.

"meurtre" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV  ·  "meurtres" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meurtre ← emurtre · merutre · meurrte · meurrtre · meurter · meurtrre · meurttre · meutrre
  • meurtres ← emurtres · merutres · meurrtes · meurrtres · meurters · meurtress · meurtrres · meurtrse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meurtre" and "meurtres" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mœʁtʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "meurtre" vs "meurtres" - which ranks higher?
"meurtre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,484 in our French list, against #7,085 for "meurtres". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meurtre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meurtres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #416,191 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meurtre" and "meurtres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meurtres vs meutre". 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 #416,191 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