metvsmouWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: met is a conjunction, mou is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“met” is a conjunction and “mou” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,499
“met” frequency rank
#46,072
“mou” frequency rank
69571
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature met mou
Definition Pero. Blando.

Where the eye mixes met and mou

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
met
3 ch
mou

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: met is /ˈmɛtː/ while mou is [mu]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (conjunction vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69571, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

met is recorded at frequency rank #23,499, classified as aconj, pronounced /ˈmɛtː/. mou is at rank #46,072, tagged as anadj, pronounced [mu].

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 69571, this pair ranks #31,695 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of met vs mou

Shared letters: m. Private to "met": et. Private to "mou": ou.

"met" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "met" and "mou" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "met" is a conjunction and "mou" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "met" or "mou"?
"met" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,499 in our Spanish list, against #46,072 for "mou". 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 "met" and "mou". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "met" 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 #31,695 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "met" and "mou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mou vs mur". Nearby pair

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