mudvsmutéTell them apart

Quick tell: mud is a noun, muté is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mud” is a noun and “muté” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,806
“mud” frequency rank
#24,292
“muté” frequency rank
74098
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mud muté
Definition Boue. Se dit d’un vin dont la fermentation a été stoppée par l’ajout d’alcool ou d'acide sulfureux lui permettant ainsi de garder des sucres résiduels.

Where the eye mixes mud and muté

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
mud
4 ch
muté

Look-alike desk: mud vs muté

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mud is \ˈmʌd\ while muté is \my.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74098, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mud is recorded at frequency rank #49,806, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmʌd\. muté is at rank #24,292, tagged as anadj, pronounced \my.te\.

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 74098, this pair ranks #38,258 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mud vs muté

Shared letters: mu. Private to "mud": d. Private to "muté": .

"mud" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "muté" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mud" and "muté" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mud" is a noun and "muté" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mud" or "muté"?
"muté" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,292 in our French list, against #49,806 for "mud". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mud" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,258 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mud" and "muté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mud vs MWh". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #38,258 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