mobyvsmoteConfusable pair

Which to use

“moby” and “mote” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#28,998
“moby” frequency rank
#45,526
“mote” frequency rank
74524
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moby mote
Definition A mobile phone. A small particle; a speck.

Letter map: moby vs mote

Shared letters muted; letters that set moby and mote apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. moby and mote follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
moby
4 ch
mote

Pair insight - moby / mote

moby and mote are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74524, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

moby is recorded at frequency rank #28,998, classified as anoun. mote is at rank #45,526, tagged as anoun, pronounced /moʊt/.

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 74524, this pair ranks #36,089 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of moby vs mote

Shared letters: mo. Private to "moby": by. Private to "mote": et.

"moby" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mote" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moby ← mboy · mmoby · mobby · mobyy · moyb · omby
  • mote ← mmote · moet · motte · mtoe · omte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "moby" and "mote" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "moby" vs "mote" - which ranks higher?
"moby" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,998 in our English list, against #45,526 for "mote". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "moby" and "mote".

  • Full dictionary entry for "moby" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mote" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,089 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moby" and "mote" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Moog vs mote". 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 #36,089 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list