médocvsmeloConfusable pair

Which to use

“médoc” and “melo” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#22,342
“médoc” frequency rank
#36,955
“melo” frequency rank
59297
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature médoc melo
Definition Bordeaux renommé pour sa couleur rubis, son bouquet, sa finesse et son moelleux, provenant du Bas et Haut-Médoc, classé en grands crus (Château-Lafitte, Château-Latour, Château-Margaux), crus bourgeois et crus artisans. Blaireau.

Where the eye mixes médoc and melo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. médoc runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against melo's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
médoc
4 ch
melo

Visual trap between médoc and melo

A purely visual mix-up. médoc (\me.dɔk\) and melo (\ˈme.lo\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59297, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

médoc is recorded at frequency rank #22,342, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.dɔk\. melo is at rank #36,955, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈme.lo\.

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 59297, this pair ranks #103,958 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of médoc vs melo

Shared letters: mo. Private to "médoc": cdé. Private to "melo": el.

"médoc" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "melo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • melo ← emlo · mello · meol · mleo · mmelo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "médoc" for "melo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\me.dɔk\ versus \ˈme.lo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "médoc" or "melo" show up more?
"médoc" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,342 in our French list, against #36,955 for "melo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "médoc" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "melo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #103,958 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "médoc" and "melo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "melo vs mito". 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 #103,958 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list