moevsmoireTell them apart

Which to use

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

#29,044
“moe” frequency rank
#48,051
“moire” frequency rank
77095
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moe moire
Definition Bouche, lèvre. Apprêt que reçoivent, par un calandrage spécifique, certaines étoffes de soie, de laine, de coton ou de lin, et qui leur communique un éclat changeant, une apparence ondée et chatoyante.

Letter map: moe vs moire

Shared letters muted; letters that set moe and moire apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. moe runs 3 letters (CVV) against moire's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
moe
5 ch
moire

Spelling & dictionary notes on moe vs moire

moe and moire are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77095, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

moe is recorded at frequency rank #29,044, classified as anoun. moire is at rank #48,051, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mwaʁ\.

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 77095, this pair ranks #29,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of moe vs moire

Shared letters: emo. Private to "moe": -. Private to "moire": ir.

"moe" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "moire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moire ← miore · mmoire · moier · moirre · morie · omire

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "moe" for "moire" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "moe" vs "moire" - which ranks higher?
"moe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,044 in our French list, against #48,051 for "moire". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "moe" and "moire". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "moe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moe" and "moire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moire vs moisie". 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 #29,332 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