Which to use
“mule” and “mules” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,051
- “mule” frequency rank
- #29,455
- “mules” frequency rank
- 54506
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mule | mules |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Femelle du mulet, équidé issu du croisement d’un âne et d’une jument et le plus souvent stérile. | Pluriel de mule. |
Same sound, different letters: mule vs mules
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - mule and mules
This is the hard kind. mule and mules are pronounced identically (\myl\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “mule” sits inside “mules”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mule is recorded at frequency rank #25,051, classified as anoun, pronounced \myl\. mules is at rank #29,455, tagged as anoun, pronounced \myl\.
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 54506, this pair ranks #133,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of mule vs mules
Shared letters: elmu. Private to "mule": -. Private to "mules": s.
"mule" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mules" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "mule" and "mules" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "mule" or "mules" show up more?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "mule" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mules" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #133,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mule" and "mules" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "muer vs mules". 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 #133,546 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.