mudvsmursWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,806
“mud” frequency rank
#2,288
“murs” frequency rank
52094
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mud murs
Definition Boue. Pluriel de mur.

Where the eye mixes mud and murs

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

3 ch
mud
4 ch
murs

Visual trap between mud and murs

A purely visual mix-up. mud (\ˈmʌd\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52094, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mud is recorded at frequency rank #49,806, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmʌd\. 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 52094, this pair ranks #150,226 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mud vs murs

Shared letters: mu. Private to "mud": d. Private to "murs": rs.

"mud" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "murs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mud" for "murs" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈmʌd\ versus \myʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mud" or "murs"?
"murs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,288 in our French list, against #49,806 for "mud". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mud" 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 #150,226 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mud" and "murs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mud 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 #150,226 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