men'svsmensWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,245
“men's” frequency rank
#16,075
“mens” frequency rank
19320
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature men's mens
Definition possessive case of men: belonging to some or all male humans. Alternative form of men (“plural of man”).

Letter map: men's vs mens

Shared letters muted; letters that set men's and mens apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
men's
4 ch
mens

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

men's and mens are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

men's is recorded at frequency rank #3,245, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɛnz/. mens is at rank #16,075, tagged as anoun.

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 19320, this pair ranks #439,003 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of men's vs mens

Shared letters: emns. Private to "men's": -. Private to "mens": -.

"men's" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mens" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mensemns · menns · menss · mesn · mmens · mnes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "men's" and "mens" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "men's" or "mens"?
"men's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,245 in our English list, against #16,075 for "mens". 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