Which to use
“mahé” is a postp and “mule” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #44,035
- “mahé” frequency rank
- #25,051
- “mule” frequency rank
- 69086
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mahé | mule |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dans, dedans. | Femelle du mulet, équidé issu du croisement d’un âne et d’une jument et le plus souvent stérile. |
Where the eye mixes mahé and mule
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. mahé and mule follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between mahé and mule
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mahé is \ma.ˈhe\ while mule is \myl\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (postp vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69086, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mahé is recorded at frequency rank #44,035, classified as apostp, pronounced \ma.ˈhe\. mule is at rank #25,051, tagged as anoun, pronounced \myl\.
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 69086, this pair ranks #56,528 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mahé vs mule
Shared letters: m. Private to "mahé": ahé. Private to "mule": elu.
"mahé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mule" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- mule ← mlue · mmule · muel · mulle · umle
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "mahé" for "mule" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "mahé" or "mule" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "mahé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mule" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #56,528 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mahé" and "mule" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mahé vs MWh". 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 #56,528 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.