men'svsminesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“men's” and “mines” 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
#5,340
“mines” frequency rank
8585
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Where the eye mixes men's and mines

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

5 ch
men's
5 ch
mines

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. men's (/mɛnz/) and mines (/maɪnz/) 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 8585, 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/. mines is at rank #5,340, tagged as anoun, pronounced /maɪnz/.

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 8585, this pair ranks #501,765 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of men's vs mines

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

"men's" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • minesimnes · miens · miness · minnes · minse · mmines · mnies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "men's" and "mines" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/mɛnz/ versus /maɪnz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "men's" or "mines"?
"men's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,245 in our English list, against #5,340 for "mines". 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