melovsmetroWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#36,955
“melo” frequency rank
#10,194
“metro” frequency rank
47149
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature melo metro
Definition Blaireau. Métro.

Where the eye mixes melo and metro

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. melo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against metro's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
melo
5 ch
metro

Look-alike desk: melo vs metro

A purely visual mix-up. melo (\ˈme.lo\) and metro (\me.ˈtrɔ\) 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 47149, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

melo is recorded at frequency rank #36,955, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈme.lo\. metro is at rank #10,194, tagged as anoun, pronounced \me.ˈtrɔ\.

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 47149, this pair ranks #189,188 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of melo vs metro

Shared letters: emo. Private to "melo": l. Private to "metro": rt.

"melo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "metro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • melo ← emlo · mello · meol · mleo · mmelo
  • metro ← emtro · merto · metor · metrro · mettro · mmetro · mtero

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "melo" and "metro" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈme.lo\ versus \me.ˈtrɔ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "melo" vs "metro" - which ranks higher?
"metro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,194 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.

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 "melo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "metro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #189,188 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "melo" and "metro" 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 #189,188 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