Which to use
“masses” and “musées” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,461
- “masses” frequency rank
- #5,369
- “musées” frequency rank
- 12830
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | masses | musées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de masse. | Fête destinée à honorer les Muses, et ayant lieu à Thespies en Grèce. |
Where the eye mixes masses and musées
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses masses with musées
A purely visual mix-up. masses (\mas\) and musées (\my.ze\) 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 12830, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
masses is recorded at frequency rank #7,461, classified as anoun, pronounced \mas\. musées is at rank #5,369, tagged as anoun, pronounced \my.ze\.
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 12830, this pair ranks #403,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of masses vs musées
Shared letters: ems. Private to "masses": a. Private to "musées": ué.
"masses" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "musées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- masses ← amsses · masess · massess · massse · mmasses · msases
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "masses" for "musées" ever safe?
Frequency check: "masses" vs "musées" - which ranks higher?
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 "masses" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "musées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #403,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "masses" and "musées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "masses vs Massey". 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 #403,579 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.