Which to use
“moire” is a noun and “moite” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,051
- “moire” frequency rank
- #40,376
- “moite” frequency rank
- 88427
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | moire | moite |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | Qui a quelque humidité, qui est un peu mouillé. Se dit surtout de la peau rendue humide par la sueur. |
Where the eye mixes moire and moite
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. moire and moite follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses moire with moite
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: moire is \mwaʁ\ while moite is \mwat\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - r in “moire” becomes t in “moite”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88427, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
moire is recorded at frequency rank #48,051, classified as anoun, pronounced \mwaʁ\. moite is at rank #40,376, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mwat\.
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 88427, this pair ranks #7,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of moire vs moite
Shared letters: eimo. Private to "moire": r. Private to "moite": t.
"moire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "moite" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "moire" and "moite" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "moire" vs "moite" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "moire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "moite" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #7,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "moire" and "moite" 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 #7,009 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.