meulesvsmusesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#32,908
“meules” frequency rank
#31,145
“muses” frequency rank
64053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meules muses
Definition Pluriel de meule. Pluriel de muse.

Where the eye mixes meules and muses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. meules runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against muses's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
meules
5 ch
muses

Why the eye confuses meules with muses

A purely visual mix-up. meules (\møl\) and muses (\myz\) 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 64053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meules is recorded at frequency rank #32,908, classified as anoun, pronounced \møl\. muses is at rank #31,145, tagged as anoun, pronounced \myz\.

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 64053, this pair ranks #78,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of meules vs muses

Shared letters: emsu. Private to "meules": l. Private to "muses": -.

"meules" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "muses" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meulesemules · melues · meuels · meuless · meulles · meulse · mmeules · mueles
  • musesmmuses · msues · muess · musess · musses · umses

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meules" for "muses" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\møl\ versus \myz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "meules" or "muses" show up more?
"muses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,145 in our French list, against #32,908 for "meules". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meules" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #78,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meules" and "muses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meublés vs meules". 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 #78,904 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