Which to use
“moby” is a noun and “mou” is a particle - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,998
- “moby” frequency rank
- #25,145
- “mou” frequency rank
- 54143
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | moby | mou |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A mobile phone. | Sentence-final particle, forms a tag question. |
Letter map: moby vs mou
Shared letters muted; letters that set moby and mou apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for moby / mou
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: moby is anoun and mouaparticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54143, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
moby is recorded at frequency rank #28,998, classified as anoun. 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 54143, this pair ranks #143,348 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of moby vs mou
Shared letters: mo. Private to "moby": by. Private to "mou": u.
"moby" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mou" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- moby ← mboy · mmoby · mobby · mobyy · moyb · omby
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "moby" for "mou" ever safe?
Which is more common, "moby" or "mou"?
What to do next
Pair "moby" vs "mou" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "moby" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #143,348 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "moby" and "mou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moby vs Moog". 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 #143,348 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.