mesvsMESZTell them apart

Quick tell: mes is a unknown, MESZ is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mes” is an unknown and “MESZ” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,176
“mes” frequency rank
#30,200
“MESZ” frequency rank
61376
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mes MESZ
Definition Plural Maskulinum des Pronomens mon Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit

Letter map: mes vs MESZ

Shared letters muted; letters that set mes and MESZ apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
mes
4 ch
MESZ

Part-of-speech tell for mes / MESZ

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mes is anunknown and MESZanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “mes” sits inside “MESZ”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61376, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mes is recorded at frequency rank #31,176, classified as anunknown, pronounced [me]. MESZ is at rank #30,200, tagged as anabbrev.

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 61376, this pair ranks #752,183 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mes vs MESZ

Shared letters: ems. Private to "mes": -. Private to "MESZ": z.

"mes" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "MESZ" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • MESZemsz · messz · meszz · mezs · mmesz · msez

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mes" and "MESZ" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mes" is an unknown and "MESZ" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mes" vs "MESZ" - which ranks higher?
"MESZ" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,200 in our German list, against #31,176 for "mes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mes" and "MESZ".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "MESZ" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #752,183 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mes" and "MESZ" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mals vs mes". 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 #752,183 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