MehlvsmehrWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Mehl is a noun, mehr is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Mehl” is a noun and “mehr” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,773
“Mehl” frequency rank
#61
“mehr” frequency rank
9834
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mehl mehr
Definition meist aus gemahlenen Getreidekörnern gewonnenes pulverförmiges Produkt über viel hinausgehend; eine bestimmte Anzahl/Menge übersteigend

Where the eye mixes Mehl and mehr

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Mehl
4 ch
mehr

Why the eye confuses Mehl with mehr

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Mehl is [meːl] while mehr is [meːɐ̯]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “Mehl” becomes r in “mehr”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9834, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mehl is recorded at frequency rank #9,773, classified as anoun, pronounced [meːl]. mehr is at rank #61, tagged as apron, pronounced [meːɐ̯].

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 9834, this pair ranks #1,978,076 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Mehl vs mehr

Shared letters: ehm. Private to "Mehl": l. Private to "mehr": r.

"Mehl" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mehr" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mehlemhl · mehhl · mehll · melh · mhel · mmehl
  • mehremhr · mehhr · mehrr · merh · mher · mmehr

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Mehl" for "mehr" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mehl" is a noun and "mehr" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Mehl" vs "mehr" - which ranks higher?
"mehr" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #61 in our German list, against #9,773 for "Mehl". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mehl" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mehr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,978,076 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mehl" and "mehr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mehl vs Memel". 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 #1,978,076 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