mollvsmopConfusable pair

Which to use

“moll” and “mop” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#42,278
“moll” frequency rank
#17,422
“mop” frequency rank
59700
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moll mop
Definition A female companion of a gangster or other criminal, especially a former or current prostitute. An implement for washing floors or similar, made of a piece of cloth, or a collection of thrums, or coarse yarn, fastened to a handle.

Where the eye mixes moll and mop

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
moll
3 ch
mop

Look-alike desk: moll vs mop

A purely visual mix-up. moll (/mɒl/) and mop (/mɒp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59700, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

moll is recorded at frequency rank #42,278, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɒl/. mop is at rank #17,422, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɒp/.

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 59700, this pair ranks #104,577 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of moll vs mop

Shared letters: mo. Private to "moll": l. Private to "mop": p.

"moll" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mop" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mollmlol · mmoll · omll

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "moll" for "mop" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/mɒl/ versus /mɒp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "moll" or "mop"?
"mop" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,422 in our English list, against #42,278 for "moll". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "moll" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mop" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #104,577 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moll" and "mop" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moll 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 #104,577 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