meurtrevsmeuteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,484
“meurtre” frequency rank
#13,633
“meute” frequency rank
16117
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meurtre meute
Definition Homicide volontaire. Troupe de chiens courants dressés pour la vénerie ou chasse à courre.

Where the eye mixes meurtre and meute

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

7 ch
meurtre
5 ch
meute

Look-alike desk: meurtre vs meute

A purely visual mix-up. meurtre (\mœʁtʁ\) and meute (\møt\) 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 16117, 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\. meute is at rank #13,633, tagged as anoun, pronounced \møt\.

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 16117, this pair ranks #389,312 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meurtre vs meute

Shared letters: emtu. Private to "meurtre": r. Private to "meute": -.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meurtre ← emurtre · merutre · meurrte · meurrtre · meurter · meurtrre · meurttre · meutrre
  • meute ← emute · metue · meuet · meutte · mmeute · muete

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meurtre" and "meute" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mœʁtʁ\ versus \møt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "meurtre" vs "meute" - which ranks higher?
"meurtre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,484 in our French list, against #13,633 for "meute". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "meurtre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meute" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #389,312 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meurtre" and "meute" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meute 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 #389,312 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