men'svsmintsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“men's” and “mints” 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
#28,295
“mints” frequency rank
31540
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Where the eye mixes men's and mints

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

5 ch
men's
5 ch
mints

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. men's (/mɛnz/) and mints (/mɪnts/) 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 31540, 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/. mints is at rank #28,295, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɪnts/.

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 31540, this pair ranks #345,242 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of men's vs mints

Shared letters: mns. Private to "men's": e. Private to "mints": it.

"men's" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mints" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mintsimnts · minnts · minst · mintss · mintts · mitns · mmints · mnits

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "men's" and "mints" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/mɛnz/ versus /mɪnts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "men's" or "mints"?
"men's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,245 in our English list, against #28,295 for "mints". 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