English homophones

mews/muse

"muse" (#13,199 written frequency) beats "mews" (#43,263) in this 2-word /mjuːz/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /mjuːz/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "muse" leads at #13,199, with "mews" trailing at #43,263.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • No shared spelling stem: "mews" is 4 letters, "muse" is 4; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across mews, muse: ems. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • mews

    4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC

    Inventory emsw · private w

  • muse

    4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV

    Inventory emsu · private u

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "mews" when you mean: An alley where there are stables; a narrow passage; a confined place.
  • Write "muse" when you mean: Of a person: a source of inspiration.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • mewsemws · mesw · mewss · mewws · mmews · mwes
  • musemmuse · msue · mues · musse · umse

Each spelling

mews

noun · /mjuːz/ · #43,263 frequency

An alley where there are stables; a narrow passage; a confined place.

muse

noun · /mjuːz/ · #13,199 frequency

Of a person: a source of inspiration.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (mews, muse). Here's where to go from here.

  • "muse" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #13,199 in English). Full entry
  • Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
  • Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: maximize · maximise. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "mews, muse" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list