Which to use
“mel” is a noun and “meng” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,425
- “mel” frequency rank
- #48,041
- “meng” frequency rank
- 61466
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mel | meng |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Unité de mesure de hauteur tonale (ou tonie), en acoustique. Par définition, un son d’une fréquence de 1 kilohertz et d’une intensité de 40 décibels au-dessus du seuil d’audition a une hauteur de 1000 mels. | Ma, la mienne. |
Where the eye mixes mel and meng
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses mel with meng
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mel is \mɛl\ while meng is \meŋ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61466, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mel is recorded at frequency rank #13,425, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛl\. meng is at rank #48,041, tagged as apron, pronounced \meŋ\.
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 61466, this pair ranks #92,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mel vs meng
Shared letters: em. Private to "mel": l. Private to "meng": gn.
"mel" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "meng" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- meng ← emng · megn · mengg · menng · mmeng · mneg
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "mel" for "meng" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "mel" or "meng" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "mel" and "meng" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "mel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "meng" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #92,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mel" and "meng" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meng vs MSG". 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 #92,129 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.