moodvsmothWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,378
“mood” frequency rank
#15,005
“moth” frequency rank
18383
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mood moth
Definition A mental or emotional state, composure. Any flying insect of the order Lepidoptera not in the superfamily Papilionoidea, most species of which are nocturnal and can be distinguished from butterflies by feather-like antennae.

Where the eye mixes mood and moth

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

4 ch
mood
4 ch
moth

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. mood (/muːd/) and moth (/mɒθ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18383, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mood is recorded at frequency rank #3,378, classified as anoun, pronounced /muːd/. moth is at rank #15,005, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɒθ/.

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 18383, this pair ranks #445,269 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mood vs moth

Shared letters: mo. Private to "mood": d. Private to "moth": ht.

"mood" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "moth" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moodmmood · modo · moodd · omod
  • mothmmoth · moht · mothh · motth · mtoh · omth

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mood" and "moth" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/muːd/ versus /mɒθ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mood" or "moth"?
"mood" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,378 in our English list, against #15,005 for "moth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "mood" and "moth". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mood" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #445,269 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mood" and "moth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Moog vs moth". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list