murvsmûresWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mur is a noun, mûres is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,531
“mur” frequency rank
#25,411
“mûres” frequency rank
26942
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mur mûres
Definition Édification généralement verticale élevée en divers matériaux, pour enclore un espace, séparer des pièces, ou soutenir quelque chose. Féminin pluriel de mûr.

Same sound, different letters: mur vs mûres

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 2 letters.

3 ch
mur
5 ch
mûres

Homophone desk: mur vs mûres

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: mur and mûres carry the same recorded pronunciation, \myʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26942, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mur is recorded at frequency rank #1,531, classified as anoun, pronounced \myʁ\. mûres is at rank #25,411, tagged as anadj, 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 26942, this pair ranks #331,899 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mur vs mûres

Shared letters: mr. Private to "mur": u. Private to "mûres": esû.

"mur" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mûres" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mur" for "mûres" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mur" is a noun and "mûres" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mur" or "mûres"?
"mur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,531 in our French list, against #25,411 for "mûres". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

"mur" and "mûres" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mûres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #331,899 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mur" and "mûres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "muer vs mûres". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #331,899 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