mortvsmouthWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#187
“mort” frequency rank
#46,308
“mouth” frequency rank
46495
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mort mouth
Definition Arrêt définitif des fonctions vitales (assimilation de nutriments, respiration, fonctionnement du système nerveux central). Bouche.

Where the eye mixes mort and mouth

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

4 ch
mort
5 ch
mouth

Why the eye confuses mort with mouth

A purely visual mix-up. mort (\mɔʁ\) and mouth (\ˈmaʊθ\) 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 46495, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mort is recorded at frequency rank #187, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁ\. mouth is at rank #46,308, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈmaʊθ\.

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 46495, this pair ranks #194,461 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mort vs mouth

Shared letters: mot. Private to "mort": r. Private to "mouth": hu.

"mort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mouth" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mort ← mmort · morrt · mortt · motr · mrot · omrt
  • mouth ← mmouth · motuh · mouht · mouthh · moutth · muoth · omuth

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mort" for "mouth" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɔʁ\ versus \ˈmaʊθ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "mort" vs "mouth" - which ranks higher?
"mort" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #187 in our French list, against #46,308 for "mouth". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "mort" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mouth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,461 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mort" and "mouth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Moura vs mouth". 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 #194,461 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