menuvsmouWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: menu is a noun, mou is a particle, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“menu” is a noun and “mou” is a particle - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,613
“menu” frequency rank
#25,145
“mou” frequency rank
29758
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature menu mou
Definition The details of the food to be served at a banquet; a bill of fare. Sentence-final particle, forms a tag question.

Letter map: menu vs mou

Shared letters muted; letters that set menu and mou apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
menu
3 ch
mou

Grammar separator: menu vs mou

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: menu is anoun and mouaparticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29758, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

menu is recorded at frequency rank #4,613, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɛn.juː/. mou is at rank #25,145, tagged as aparticle.

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 29758, this pair ranks #360,289 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of menu vs mou

Shared letters: mu. Private to "menu": en. Private to "mou": o.

"menu" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • menuemnu · mennu · meun · mmenu · mneu

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "menu" and "mou" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "menu" is a noun and "mou" a particle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "menu" vs "mou" - which ranks higher?
"menu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,613 in our English list, against #25,145 for "mou". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "menu" and "mou".

  • Full dictionary entry for "menu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #360,289 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "menu" and "mou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Moog vs mou". 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 #360,289 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