mousevsmoussesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#31,143
“mouse” frequency rank
#25,406
“mousses” frequency rank
56549
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mouse mousses
Definition Souris. Pluriel de mousse (nom féminin).

Where the eye mixes mouse and mousses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
mouse
7 ch
mousses

Visual trap between mouse and mousses

A purely visual mix-up. mouse (\maʊs\) and mousses (\mus\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mouse is recorded at frequency rank #31,143, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʊs\. mousses is at rank #25,406, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mus\.

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 56549, this pair ranks #120,425 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mouse vs mousses

Shared letters: emosu. Private to "mouse": -. Private to "mousses": -.

"mouse" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "mousses" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mousemmouse · mosue · moues · muose · omuse
  • moussesmmousses · mosuses · mousess · moussess · moussse · muosses · omusses

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mouse" and "mousses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\maʊs\ versus \mus\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "mouse" or "mousses" show up more?
"mousses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,406 in our French list, against #31,143 for "mouse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mouse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mousses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,425 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mouse" and "mousses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moquée vs mouse". 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 #120,425 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