muvsmursWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#14,985
“mu” frequency rank
#2,288
“murs” frequency rank
17273
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mu murs
Definition μ, Μ, douzième lettre et huitième consonne de l’alphabet grec. Pluriel de mur.

Where the eye mixes mu and murs

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

2 ch
mu
4 ch
murs

Why the eye confuses mu with murs

A purely visual mix-up. mu (\my\) 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 differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mu” sits inside “murs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17273, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mu is recorded at frequency rank #14,985, classified as anoun, pronounced \my\. 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 17273, this pair ranks #383,969 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mu vs murs

Shared letters: mu. Private to "mu": -. Private to "murs": rs.

"mu" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "murs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mursmmurs · mrus · murrs · murss · musr · umrs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mu" and "murs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\my\ versus \myʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mu" or "murs"?
"murs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,288 in our French list, against #14,985 for "mu". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "mu" and "murs" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mu" 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 #383,969 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mu" and "murs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mu vs MWh". 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 #383,969 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