MmesvsmuetsTell them apart

Quick tell: Mmes is a noun, muets is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Mmes” is a noun and “muets” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,466
“Mmes” frequency rank
#22,948
“muets” frequency rank
65414
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mmes muets
Definition Pluriel de Mᵐᵉ. Masculin pluriel de muet.

Where the eye mixes Mmes and muets

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

4 ch
Mmes
5 ch
muets

Look-alike desk: Mmes vs muets

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Mmes is \me.dam\ while muets is \mɥɛ\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65414, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mmes is recorded at frequency rank #42,466, classified as anoun, pronounced \me.dam\. muets is at rank #22,948, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɥɛ\.

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 65414, this pair ranks #72,444 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Mmes vs muets

Shared letters: ems. Private to "Mmes": -. Private to "muets": tu.

"Mmes" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "muets" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mmes ← mems · mmse
  • muets ← meuts · mmuets · muest · muetss · muetts · mutes · umets

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Mmes" and "muets" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mmes" is a noun and "muets" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Mmes" vs "muets" - which ranks higher?
"muets" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,948 in our French list, against #42,466 for "Mmes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mmes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,444 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mmes" and "muets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mmes vs muer". 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 #72,444 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