modevsmoyeuWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#585
“mode” frequency rank
#46,905
“moyeu” frequency rank
47490
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mode moyeu
Definition Manière de voir ou d’agir ; fantaisie. Milieu de la roue (la roue peut être située sur une voiture, un vélo, etc.) ; gros morceau de bois tourné ou de métal, où s’emboîtent les rais, et dans le creux duquel entre l’essieu.

Where the eye mixes mode and moyeu

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. mode runs 4 letters (CVCV) against moyeu's 5 (CVVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
mode
5 ch
moyeu

Why the eye confuses mode with moyeu

A purely visual mix-up. mode (\mɔd\) and moyeu (\mwa.jø\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47490, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mode is recorded at frequency rank #585, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɔd\. moyeu is at rank #46,905, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mwa.jø\.

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 47490, this pair ranks #186,542 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mode vs moyeu

Shared letters: emo. Private to "mode": d. Private to "moyeu": uy.

"mode" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "moyeu" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mode ← mdoe · mmode · modde · moed · omde
  • moyeu ← mmoyeu · moeyu · moyue · moyyeu · myoeu · omyeu

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mode" and "moyeu" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɔd\ versus \mwa.jø\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "mode" or "moyeu" show up more?
"mode" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #585 in our French list, against #46,905 for "moyeu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mode" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moyeu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,542 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mode" and "moyeu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moulu vs moyeu". 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 #186,542 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