Which to use
“mouette” is a noun and “muettes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #32,491
- “mouette” frequency rank
- #48,672
- “muettes” frequency rank
- 81163
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mouette | muettes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nom vernaculaire donné à plusieurs espèces d'oiseaux marins de la famille des Laridae qui inclus aussi les goélands (de plus grande taille). | Féminin pluriel de muet. |
Where the eye mixes mouette and muettes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. mouette (CVVVCCV) and muettes (CVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses mouette with muettes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mouette is \mwɛt\ while muettes is \mɥɛt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81163, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mouette is recorded at frequency rank #32,491, classified as anoun, pronounced \mwɛt\. muettes is at rank #48,672, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɥɛt\.
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 81163, this pair ranks #19,346 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mouette vs muettes
Shared letters: emtu. Private to "mouette": o. Private to "muettes": s.
"mouette" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV · "muettes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mouette" and "muettes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "mouette" or "muettes"?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "mouette" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "muettes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #19,346 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mouette" and "muettes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mottes vs muettes". 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 #19,346 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.