muselervsmutilerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,383
“museler” frequency rank
#40,385
“mutiler” frequency rank
80768
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature museler mutiler
Definition Garnir d’une muselière la gueule d’un animal. Retrancher un membre ou quelque autre partie extérieure du corps.

Where the eye mixes museler and mutiler

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. museler and mutiler follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
museler
7 ch
mutiler

Why the eye confuses museler with mutiler

A purely visual mix-up. museler (\my.zle\) and mutiler (\my.ti.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80768, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

museler is recorded at frequency rank #40,383, classified as averb, pronounced \my.zle\. mutiler is at rank #40,385, tagged as averb, pronounced \my.ti.le\.

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 80768, this pair ranks #20,183 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of museler vs mutiler

Shared letters: elmru. Private to "museler": s. Private to "mutiler": it.

"museler" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "mutiler" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • museler ← mmuseler · msueler · muesler · museelr · muselerr · museller · muselre · musleer
  • mutiler ← mmutiler · mtuiler · muitler · mutielr · mutilerr · mutiller · mutilre · mutlier

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "museler" and "mutiler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\my.zle\ versus \my.ti.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "museler" or "mutiler" show up more?
"museler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,383 in our French list, against #40,385 for "mutiler". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "museler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mutiler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,183 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "museler" and "mutiler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moutier vs mutiler". 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 #20,183 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