missusvsMitsuiWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: missus is a noun, Mitsui is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“missus” is a noun and “Mitsui” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,054
“missus” frequency rank
#47,202
“Mitsui” frequency rank
85256
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature missus Mitsui
Definition Wife or girlfriend. A surname from Japanese.

Letter map: missus vs Mitsui

Shared letters muted; letters that set missus and Mitsui apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. missus (CVCCVC) and Mitsui (CVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
missus
6 ch
Mitsui

Role in the sentence - missus and Mitsui

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: missus is anoun and Mitsuianame. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85256, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

missus is recorded at frequency rank #38,054, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɪs.əz/. Mitsui is at rank #47,202, tagged as aname.

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 85256, this pair ranks #10,672 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of missus vs Mitsui

Shared letters: imsu. Private to "missus": -. Private to "Mitsui": t.

"missus" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "Mitsui" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • missus ← imssus · misssu · missuss · misus · misuss · mmissus · msisus
  • Mitsui ← imtsui · mistui · mitsiu · mitssui · mittsui · mitusi · mmitsui · mtisui

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "missus" for "Mitsui" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "missus" is a noun and "Mitsui" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "missus" or "Mitsui"?
"missus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,054 in our English list, against #47,202 for "Mitsui". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "missus" and "Mitsui". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "missus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mitsui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,672 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "missus" and "Mitsui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "missa vs missus". 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 #10,672 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