mue

\my\

/\my\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“mue” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #19,916) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#19,916
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Changement de poil, de plumes, de peau, de cornes, etc., qui arrive aux animaux, ou tous les ans, ou à certaines époques de leur vie.

Corpus desk

Index FR-mue · mue · French

mue · rank #19,916 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #19,916
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH much

Nearest frequency peer: much (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « mue »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « mue » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

mue vs my
33% similar
mue vs MW
0% similar
mue vs Mx
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for mue
PropertyValue
Headwordmue
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\my\
Letters3
Frequency rank#19,916
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « mue »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.muese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « much » (#19,915), « méconnaissance » (#19,917), « Mourinho » (#19,914). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « mue » est au #19,916. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for mue is neighbouring look-alikes ("my", "MW", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \my\. Frequency #19,916 among 5,038 “M” headwords. 6 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for mue, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "my", "MW", "Mx", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is mue, spelled M-U-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Changement de poil, de plumes, de peau, de cornes, etc., qui arrive aux animaux, ou tous les ans, ou à certaines époques de leur vie.
  2. 2
    Époque où ces changements se font.
  3. 3
    Temps de l'âge d'un oiseau de proie compté en nombre de mues.
  4. 4
    La dépouille d’un animal qui a mué.
  5. 5
    Changement qui se produit dans la voix humaine à l’époque de la puberté.
  6. 6
    Changement ; transformation; évolution.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how mue appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Le diflubenzuron est essentiellement un larvicide d’ingestion. […]. Les larves, qui ne sont pas tuées ou paralysées immédiatement, meurent au moment de la mue suivante.
  2. Le développement de cette espèce est de type hétérométabole : l’accroissement de la taille se fait progressivement au cours de quatre mues juvéniles et d’une mue imaginale et s’accompagne de changements dans les proportions du corps.

This word in other languages

moult(English)muda(Español)Mauser(Deutsch)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "mue"?
"mue" is spelled M-U-E. The IPA pronunciation is \my\.
What does "mue" mean?
As a noun, "mue" means: Changement de poil, de plumes, de peau, de cornes, etc., qui arrive aux animaux, ou tous les ans, ou à certaines époques de leur vie.
What words are commonly confused with "mue"?
"mue" is commonly confused with "my", "MW", "Mx". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mue"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mue" is \my\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mue" come from?
"mue" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mue", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

pam#19,927pea#19,936lil#19,895PHP#19,939

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list