muvsMuteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mu is a unknown, Mute is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mu” is an unknown and “Mute” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,336
“mu” frequency rank
#40,098
“Mute” frequency rank
58434
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mu Mute
Definition Genitiv Singular des Personalpronomens mina Variante für den Dativ Singular des Substantivs Mut

Letter map: mu vs Mute

Shared letters muted; letters that set mu and Mute apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
mu
4 ch
Mute

Part-of-speech tell for mu / Mute

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mu is anunknown and Muteanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mu” sits inside “Mute”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58434, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mu is recorded at frequency rank #18,336, classified as anunknown, pronounced […]. Mute is at rank #40,098, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmuːtə].

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 58434, this pair ranks #862,874 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mu vs Mute

Shared letters: mu. Private to "mu": -. Private to "Mute": et.

"mu" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "Mute" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mutemmute · mtue · muet · umte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mu" for "Mute" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mu" is an unknown and "Mute" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mu" or "Mute"?
"mu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,336 in our German list, against #40,098 for "Mute". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "mu" vs "Mute" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mute" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #862,874 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mu" and "Mute" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Matze vs Mute". 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 #862,874 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