meetsvsmen'sWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,893
“meets” frequency rank
#3,245
“men's” frequency rank
7138
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meets men's
Definition plural of meet possessive case of men: belonging to some or all male humans.

Where the eye mixes meets and men's

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
meets
5 ch
men's

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. meets (/miːts/) and men's (/mɛnz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7138, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meets is recorded at frequency rank #3,893, classified as anoun, pronounced /miːts/. men's is at rank #3,245, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɛnz/.

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 7138, this pair ranks #508,400 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meets vs men's

Shared letters: ems. Private to "meets": t. Private to "men's": n.

"meets" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "men's" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meetsemets · meest · meetss · meetts · metes · mmeets

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meets" and "men's" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/miːts/ versus /mɛnz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "meets" or "men's"?
"men's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,245 in our English list, against #3,893 for "meets". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list