mollvsmullWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: moll is a noun, mull is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“moll” is a noun and “mull” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,278
“moll” frequency rank
#31,263
“mull” frequency rank
73541
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moll mull
Definition A female companion of a gangster or other criminal, especially a former or current prostitute. To work (over) mentally; to cogitate; to ruminate.

Where the eye mixes moll and mull

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. moll and mull follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
moll
4 ch
mull

Look-alike desk: moll vs mull

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: moll is /mɒl/ while mull is /mʌl/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - o in “moll” becomes u in “mull”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73541, 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/. mull is at rank #31,263, tagged as averb, pronounced /mʌl/.

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 73541, this pair ranks #39,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of moll vs mull

Shared letters: lm. Private to "moll": o. Private to "mull": u.

"moll" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mull" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moll ← mlol · mmoll · omll
  • mull ← mlul · mmull · mul · umll

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "moll" and "mull" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "moll" is a noun and "mull" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "moll" vs "mull" - which ranks higher?
"mull" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,263 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.

What to do next

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 "mull" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moll" and "mull" 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 #39,281 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