meatsvsmewsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“meats” and “mews” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,449
“meats” frequency rank
#43,263
“mews” frequency rank
58712
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meats mews
Definition plural of meat An alley where there are stables; a narrow passage; a confined place.

Where the eye mixes meats and mews

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. meats runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against mews's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
meats
4 ch
mews

Why the eye confuses meats with mews

A purely visual mix-up. meats (/miːts/) and mews (/mjuːz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58712, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meats is recorded at frequency rank #15,449, classified as anoun, pronounced /miːts/. mews is at rank #43,263, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mjuːz/.

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 58712, this pair ranks #110,803 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of meats vs mews

Shared letters: ems. Private to "meats": at. Private to "mews": w.

"meats" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "mews" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meats ← emats · meast · meatss · meatts · metas · mmeats
  • mews ← emws · mesw · mewss · mewws · mmews · mwes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meats" and "mews" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/miːts/ versus /mjuːz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "meats" or "mews"?
"meats" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,449 in our English list, against #43,263 for "mews". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "meats" and "mews" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meats" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mews" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,803 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meats" and "mews" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mews vs MGS". 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 #110,803 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list