Which to use
“medley” is a noun and “motley” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #20,164
- “medley” frequency rank
- #25,849
- “motley” frequency rank
- 46013
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | medley | motley |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Combat, fighting; a battle. | Comprising greatly varied elements, to the point of incongruity. |
Where the eye mixes medley and motley
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. medley and motley follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between medley and motley
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medley is /ˈmɛdli/ while motley is /ˈmɒtli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46013, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
medley is recorded at frequency rank #20,164, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɛdli/. motley is at rank #25,849, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈmɒtli/.
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 46013, this pair ranks #215,820 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of medley vs motley
Shared letters: elmy. Private to "medley": d. Private to "motley": ot.
"medley" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "motley" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "medley" and "motley" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "medley" vs "motley" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "medley" and "motley" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "medley" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "motley" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #215,820 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "medley" and "motley" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Moslem vs motley". 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 #215,820 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.