mongvsmouTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#29,386
“mong” frequency rank
#25,145
“mou” frequency rank
54531
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mong mou
Definition A mingling, mixture, or crowd. Sentence-final particle, forms a tag question.

Letter map: mong vs mou

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

4 ch
mong
3 ch
mou

Role in the sentence - mong and mou

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mong is anoun and mouaparticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54531, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mong is recorded at frequency rank #29,386, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmʌŋ/. 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 54531, this pair ranks #140,349 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mong vs mou

Shared letters: mo. Private to "mong": gn. Private to "mou": u.

"mong" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mongmmong · mnog · mogn · mongg · monng · omng

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mong" for "mou" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mong" is a noun and "mou" a particle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "mong" or "mou" show up more?
"mou" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,145 in our English list, against #29,386 for "mong". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "mong" and "mou". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mong" 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 #140,349 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mong" and "mou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mong 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 #140,349 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