meshvsmexWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#10,401
“mesh” frequency rank
#30,134
“mex” frequency rank
40535
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mesh mex
Definition A structure made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible/ductile material, with evenly spaced openings between them. The mex of a subset of a well-ordered set is the smallest value from the whole set that does not belong to the subset.

Letter map: mesh vs mex

Shared letters muted; letters that set mesh and mex apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
mesh
3 ch
mex

Spelling & dictionary notes on mesh vs mex

mesh and mex 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 40535, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mesh is recorded at frequency rank #10,401, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɛʃ/. mex is at rank #30,134, 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 40535, this pair ranks #266,674 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mesh vs mex

Shared letters: em. Private to "mesh": hs. Private to "mex": x.

"mesh" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mex" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meshemsh · mehs · meshh · messh · mmesh · mseh

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mesh" and "mex" mean the same thing in a sentence?
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.
Frequency check: "mesh" vs "mex" - which ranks higher?
"mesh" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,401 in our English list, against #30,134 for "mex". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mesh" and "mex".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mesh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mex" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #266,674 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mesh" and "mex" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mex vs MMP". 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 #266,674 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