meuvsmouWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#48,897
“meu” frequency rank
#25,145
“mou” frequency rank
74042
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meu mou
Definition Meum athamanticum, a European herb. Sentence-final particle, forms a tag question.

Letter map: meu vs mou

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

3 ch
meu
3 ch
mou

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: meu is anoun and mouaparticle. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “meu” becomes o in “mou”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74042, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meu is recorded at frequency rank #48,897, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmjuː/. 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 74042, this pair ranks #37,566 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of meu vs mou

Shared letters: mu. Private to "meu": e. Private to "mou": o.

"meu" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "mou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meu" and "mou" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meu" is a noun and "mou" a particle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "meu" or "mou"?
"mou" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,145 in our English list, against #48,897 for "meu". 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