Which to use
“medley” is a noun and “mêlé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #47,451
- “medley” frequency rank
- #13,013
- “mêlé” frequency rank
- 60464
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | medley | mêlé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Course en individuel ou en équipe où quatre différents styles de nage (papillon, dos, brasse et nage libre) sont utilisés | Mélangé, entremêlé, embrouillé, désordonné. |
Where the eye mixes medley and mêlé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between medley and mêlé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medley is \mɛd.le\ while mêlé is \mɛ.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
medley is recorded at frequency rank #47,451, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛd.le\. mêlé is at rank #13,013, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɛ.le\.
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 60464, this pair ranks #97,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of medley vs mêlé
Shared letters: lm. Private to "medley": dey. Private to "mêlé": éê.
"medley" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "mêlé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- medley ← emdley · mdeley · meddley · medely · medleyy · medlley · medlye · meldey
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "medley" and "mêlé" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "medley" or "mêlé"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "medley" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mêlé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #97,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "medley" and "mêlé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Médée vs medley". 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 #97,430 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.