meurtrievsmeurtrièreWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: meurtrie is a adjective, meurtrière is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“meurtrie” is an adjective and “meurtrière” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,733
“meurtrie” frequency rank
#14,736
“meurtrière” frequency rank
60469
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meurtrie meurtrière
Definition Féminin singulier de meurtri. Celle qui a commis un meurtre.

Where the eye mixes meurtrie and meurtrière

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. meurtrie runs 8 letters (CVVCCCVV) against meurtrière's 10 (CVVCCCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
meurtrie
10 ch
meurtrière

Look-alike desk: meurtrie vs meurtrière

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meurtrie is \mœʁ.tʁi\ while meurtrière is \mœʁ.tʁi.jɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60469, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meurtrie is recorded at frequency rank #45,733, classified as anadj, pronounced \mœʁ.tʁi\. meurtrière is at rank #14,736, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mœʁ.tʁi.jɛʁ\.

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 60469, this pair ranks #97,412 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of meurtrie vs meurtrière

Shared letters: eimrtu. Private to "meurtrie": -. Private to "meurtrière": è.

"meurtrie" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCCVV  ·  "meurtrière" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meurtrie ← emurtrie · merutrie · meurrtie · meurrtrie · meurtire · meurtrei · meurtrrie · meurttrie

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meurtrie" and "meurtrière" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meurtrie" is an adjective and "meurtrière" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "meurtrie" or "meurtrière"?
"meurtrière" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,736 in our French list, against #45,733 for "meurtrie". 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 "meurtrie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meurtrière" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #97,412 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meurtrie" and "meurtrière" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meurtrie 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 #97,412 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