melonvsmeltonTell them apart

Which to use

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

#19,138
“melon” frequency rank
#32,498
“melton” frequency rank
51636
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature melon melton
Definition Some of the plants of the family Cucurbitaceae grown for food, generally not including the cucumber. A tough, short-napped material used for making overcoats.

Where the eye mixes melon and melton

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
melon
6 ch
melton

Visual trap between melon and melton

A purely visual mix-up. melon (/ˈmɛlən/) and melton (/ˈmɛlt(ə)n/) 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 51636, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

melon is recorded at frequency rank #19,138, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɛlən/. melton is at rank #32,498, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɛlt(ə)n/.

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 51636, this pair ranks #163,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of melon vs melton

Shared letters: elmno. Private to "melon": -. Private to "melton": t.

"melon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "melton" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • melonemlon · melno · melonn · meoln · mleon · mmelon
  • meltonemlton · mellton · melotn · meltno · meltonn · meltton · metlon · mleton

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "melon" for "melton" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈmɛlən/ versus /ˈmɛlt(ə)n/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "melon" vs "melton" - which ranks higher?
"melon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,138 in our English list, against #32,498 for "melton". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "melon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "melton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #163,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "melon" and "melton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mello vs melton". 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 #163,821 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