lettre de motivation
\lɛ.tʁə də mɔ.ti.va.sjɔ̃\
The verdict
“lettre de motivation” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 20
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lettre courte et concise à destination d’une personne ayant la fonction de directeur des ressources humaines (une entreprise, une association, etc.) qui permet à un candidat (chercheur d’emploi, st...
Corpus desk
Index FR-lettre-de-motivation · lettre de motivation · French
lettre de motivation · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 20 letters
- VOW-8 8 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lettre de motivation |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \lɛ.tʁə də mɔ.ti.va.sjɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 20 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « lettre de motivation » en français
Rare enough to double-check
lettre de motivation is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \lɛ.tʁə də mɔ.ti.va.sjɔ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Lettre courte et concise à destination d’une personne ayant la fonction de directeur des ressources humaines (une entreprise, une association, etc.) qui permet à un candidat (chercheur d’emploi, st...".
No misspelling variants are generated for lettre de motivation in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is lettre de motivation, spelled L-E-T-T-R-E- -D-E- -M-O-T-I-V-A-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1Lettre courte et concise à destination d’une personne ayant la fonction de directeur des ressources humaines (une entreprise, une association, etc.) qui permet à un candidat (chercheur d’emploi, stagiaire, etc.) de montrer sa motivation et ses qualités en vue d’obtenir un poste ou un stage.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lettre de motivation appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Certains recruteurs se fient beaucoup à la graphologie pour connaître les candidats, et c’est pourquoi ils exigent des lettres de motivation manuscrites.
La lettre de motivation sans CV ne sert à rien, et le CV sans lettre de motivation ne sert guère mieux.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.