Which to use
“muff” and “mush” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,774
- “muff” frequency rank
- #29,390
- “mush” frequency rank
- 71164
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | muff | mush |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A piece of fur or cloth, usually with open ends, used for keeping the hands warm. | A somewhat liquid mess, often of food; a soft or semisolid substance. |
Where the eye mixes muff and mush
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. muff and mush follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between muff and mush
A purely visual mix-up. muff (/mʌf/) and mush (/mʌʃ/) 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 71164, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
muff is recorded at frequency rank #41,774, classified as anoun, pronounced /mʌf/. mush is at rank #29,390, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mʌʃ/.
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 71164, this pair ranks #47,768 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of muff vs mush
Shared letters: mu. Private to "muff": f. Private to "mush": hs.
"muff" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "mush" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "muff" for "mush" ever safe?
Which is more common, "muff" or "mush"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "muff" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mush" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #47,768 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "muff" and "mush" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "muda vs muff". 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 #47,768 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.