mutervsmutilerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#42,475
“muter” frequency rank
#40,385
“mutiler” frequency rank
82860
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature muter mutiler
Definition Changer de forme, voire évoluer. Retrancher un membre ou quelque autre partie extérieure du corps.

Where the eye mixes muter and mutiler

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

5 ch
muter
7 ch
mutiler

Visual trap between muter and mutiler

A purely visual mix-up. muter (\my.te\) 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 differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82860, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

muter is recorded at frequency rank #42,475, classified as averb, pronounced \my.te\. 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 82860, this pair ranks #15,869 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of muter vs mutiler

Shared letters: emrtu. Private to "muter": -. Private to "mutiler": il.

"muter" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "mutiler" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mutermmuter · mtuer · muetr · muterr · mutre · mutter · umter
  • mutilermmutiler · mtuiler · muitler · mutielr · mutilerr · mutiller · mutilre · mutlier

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "muter" and "mutiler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\my.te\ versus \my.ti.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "muter" vs "mutiler" - which ranks higher?
"mutiler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,385 in our French list, against #42,475 for "muter". 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 "muter" and "mutiler" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "muter" 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 #15,869 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "muter" and "mutiler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Meier vs muter". 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 #15,869 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