mehrvsmeiWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#61
“mehr” frequency rank
#10,695
“mei” frequency rank
10756
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mehr mei
Definition über viel hinausgehend; eine bestimmte Anzahl/Menge übersteigend meine, die meinen/meinigen mit Bezug auf mehrere vorher erwähnte Objekte oder Personen

Where the eye mixes mehr and mei

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

4 ch
mehr
3 ch
mei

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mehr is [meːɐ̯] while mei is [ˈmeʔi]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10756, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mehr is recorded at frequency rank #61, classified as apron, pronounced [meːɐ̯]. 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 10756, this pair ranks #1,973,481 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mehr vs mei

Shared letters: em. Private to "mehr": hr. Private to "mei": i.

"mehr" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mei" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mehremhr · mehhr · mehrr · merh · mher · mmehr

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mehr" and "mei" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mehr" is a pronoun and "mei" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mehr" or "mei"?
"mehr" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #61 in our German list, against #10,695 for "mei". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list