meetsvsmethWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,893
“meets” frequency rank
#12,640
“meth” frequency rank
16533
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meets meth
Definition plural of meet Methamphetamine, especially in the form of the crystalline hydrochloride.

Where the eye mixes meets and meth

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

5 ch
meets
4 ch
meth

Why the eye confuses meets with meth

A purely visual mix-up. meets (/miːts/) and meth (/mɛθ/) 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 16533, 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/. meth is at rank #12,640, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɛθ/.

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 16533, this pair ranks #457,162 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meets vs meth

Shared letters: emt. Private to "meets": s. Private to "meth": h.

"meets" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "meth" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meetsemets · meest · meetss · meetts · metes · mmeets
  • methemth · meht · methh · metth · mmeth · mteh

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meets" for "meth" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/miːts/ versus /mɛθ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "meets" or "meth"?
"meets" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,893 in our English list, against #12,640 for "meth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meets" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #457,162 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meets" and "meth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mela vs meth". 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 #457,162 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