metervsmutedTell them apart

Quick tell: meter is a noun, muted is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“meter” is a noun and “muted” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,165
“meter” frequency rank
#16,759
“muted” frequency rank
22924
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meter muted
Definition A device that measures things. Not expressed strongly or openly; subdued and understated

Letter map: meter vs muted

Shared letters muted; letters that set meter and muted apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
meter
5 ch
muted

Role in the sentence - meter and muted

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: meter is anoun and mutedanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22924, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meter is recorded at frequency rank #6,165, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmitəɹ/. muted is at rank #16,759, tagged as anadj.

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 22924, this pair ranks #413,044 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meter vs muted

Shared letters: emt. Private to "meter": r. Private to "muted": du.

"meter" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "muted" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meteremter · meetr · meterr · metter · mmeter · mteer
  • mutedmmuted · mtued · muetd · mutde · mutedd · mutted · umted

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meter" for "muted" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meter" is a noun and "muted" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "meter" or "muted" show up more?
"meter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,165 in our English list, against #16,759 for "muted". 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 "meter" and "muted".

  • Full dictionary entry for "meter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,044 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meter" and "muted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mudd vs muted". 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 #413,044 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