# mess vs mex

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### mess
*noun · IPA /mɛs/ · frequency rank #2,631*
a thing or group of things in a disagreeable, disorganised, or dirty state; hence a bad situation

### mex
*noun · frequency rank #30,134*
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.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-09-02.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/mess-vs-mex