MmesvsmulesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#42,466
“Mmes” frequency rank
#29,455
“mules” frequency rank
71921
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mmes mules
Definition Pluriel de Mᵐᵉ. Pluriel de mule.

Where the eye mixes Mmes and mules

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

4 ch
Mmes
5 ch
mules

Visual trap between Mmes and mules

A purely visual mix-up. Mmes (\me.dam\) and mules (\myl\) 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 71921, 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\. mules is at rank #29,455, tagged as anoun, pronounced \myl\.

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 71921, this pair ranks #45,807 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Mmes vs mules

Shared letters: ems. Private to "Mmes": -. Private to "mules": lu.

"Mmes" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "mules" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mmes ← mems · mmse
  • mules ← mlues · mmules · muels · muless · mulles · mulse · umles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Mmes" and "mules" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\me.dam\ versus \myl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "Mmes" or "mules" show up more?
"mules" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,455 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mmes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mules" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,807 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mmes" and "mules" 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 #45,807 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