moultvsmouthConfusable pair

Quick tell: moult is a adverb, mouth is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“moult” is an adverb and “mouth” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,008
“moult” frequency rank
#46,308
“mouth” frequency rank
68316
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moult mouth
Definition et ou Beaucoup. Note d’usage : Attaché à un verbe. Bouche.

Where the eye mixes moult and mouth

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. moult and mouth follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
moult
5 ch
mouth

Visual trap between moult and mouth

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: moult is \mu\ while mouth is \ˈmaʊθ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68316, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

moult is recorded at frequency rank #22,008, classified as anadv, pronounced \mu\. 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 68316, this pair ranks #59,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of moult vs mouth

Shared letters: motu. Private to "moult": l. Private to "mouth": h.

"moult" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "mouth" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moult ← mmoult · molut · moullt · moultt · moutl · muolt · omult
  • mouth ← mmouth · motuh · mouht · mouthh · moutth · muoth · omuth

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "moult" and "mouth" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "moult" is an adverb and "mouth" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "moult" vs "mouth" - which ranks higher?
"moult" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,008 in our French list, against #46,308 for "mouth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "moult" and "mouth" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "moult" 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 #59,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moult" 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 #59,670 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