meatvsmeiWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“meat” and “mei” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#43,349
“meat” frequency rank
#10,695
“mei” frequency rank
54044
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meat mei
Definition die als Nahrung gedachte Muskulatur meine, die meinen/meinigen mit Bezug auf mehrere vorher erwähnte Objekte oder Personen

Where the eye mixes meat and mei

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

4 ch
meat
3 ch
mei

Look-alike desk: meat vs mei

A purely visual mix-up. meat ([miːt]) and mei ([ˈmeʔi]) 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 54044, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meat is recorded at frequency rank #43,349, classified as anoun, pronounced [miːt]. mei is at rank #10,695, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmeʔi].

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 54044, this pair ranks #1,034,269 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of meat vs mei

Shared letters: em. Private to "meat": at. Private to "mei": i.

"meat" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mei" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meatemat · maet · meatt · mmeat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meat" for "mei" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([miːt] versus [ˈmeʔi]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "meat" or "mei"?
"mei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,695 in our German list, against #43,349 for "meat". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "meat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mei" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,034,269 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meat" and "mei" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meat vs Mette". 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 #1,034,269 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list