mouluvsmousWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#46,903
“moulu” frequency rank
#21,092
“mous” frequency rank
67995
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moulu mous
Definition Broyé, pulvérisé dans un moulin Masculin pluriel de mou.

Where the eye mixes moulu and mous

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

5 ch
moulu
4 ch
mous

Visual trap between moulu and mous

A purely visual mix-up. moulu (\mu.ly\) and mous (\mu\) 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 67995, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

moulu is recorded at frequency rank #46,903, classified as anadj, pronounced \mu.ly\. mous is at rank #21,092, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mu\.

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 67995, this pair ranks #61,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of moulu vs mous

Shared letters: mou. Private to "moulu": l. Private to "mous": s.

"moulu" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "mous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moulu ← mmoulu · moluu · moullu · mouul · muolu · omulu
  • mous ← mmous · mosu · mouss · muos · omus

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "moulu" and "mous" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\mu.ly\ versus \mu\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "moulu" vs "mous" - which ranks higher?
"mous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,092 in our French list, against #46,903 for "moulu". 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 "moulu" and "mous" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "moulu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moulu" and "mous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moulu vs Moura". 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 #61,048 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