mouraitvsmourirWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#34,203
“mourait” frequency rank
#1,486
“mourir” frequency rank
35689
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mourait mourir
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de mourir. Cesser de vivre ; devenir mort.

Where the eye mixes mourait and mourir

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
mourait
6 ch
mourir

Look-alike desk: mourait vs mourir

A purely visual mix-up. mourait (\mu.ʁɛ\) and mourir (\mu.ʁiʁ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35689, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mourait is recorded at frequency rank #34,203, classified as averb, pronounced \mu.ʁɛ\. mourir is at rank #1,486, tagged as averb, pronounced \mu.ʁiʁ\.

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 35689, this pair ranks #274,936 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mourait vs mourir

Shared letters: imoru. Private to "mourait": at. Private to "mourir": -.

"mourait" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC  ·  "mourir" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mouraitmmourait · moruait · mouarit · mouraitt · mourati · mouriat · muorait · omurait
  • mourirmmourir · moruir · mouirr · mourirr · mourri · muorir · omurir

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mourait" for "mourir" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mu.ʁɛ\ versus \mu.ʁiʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mourait" or "mourir"?
"mourir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,486 in our French list, against #34,203 for "mourait". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mourait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mourir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #274,936 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mourait" and "mourir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Moura vs mourait". 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 #274,936 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