# meme vs mess

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### meme
*noun · IPA /miːm/ · frequency rank #8,170*
Any unit of (originally cultural) information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes.

### mess
*noun · IPA /mɛs/ · frequency rank #2,631*
a thing or group of things in a disagreeable, disorganised, or dirty state; hence a bad situation

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/meme-vs-mess