modsvsmursWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#33,350
“mods” frequency rank
#2,288
“murs” frequency rank
35638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mods murs
Definition Pluriel de mod. Pluriel de mur.

Where the eye mixes mods and murs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mods
4 ch
murs

Why the eye confuses mods with murs

A purely visual mix-up. mods (\mɔds\) and murs (\myʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35638, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mods is recorded at frequency rank #33,350, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɔds\. murs is at rank #2,288, tagged as anoun, pronounced \myʁ\.

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 35638, this pair ranks #275,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mods vs murs

Shared letters: ms. Private to "mods": do. Private to "murs": ru.

"mods" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "murs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • modsmdos · mmods · modds · modss · mosd · omds
  • mursmmurs · mrus · murrs · murss · musr · umrs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mods" for "murs" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɔds\ versus \myʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mods" or "murs"?
"murs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,288 in our French list, against #33,350 for "mods". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mods" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "murs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #275,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mods" and "murs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mods vs mud". 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 #275,299 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