Which to use
“moire” is a noun and “morne” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,051
- “moire” frequency rank
- #23,945
- “morne” frequency rank
- 71996
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | moire | morne |
|---|---|---|
| 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 est d’une tristesse sombre, allant jusqu’à l’abattement. |
Where the eye mixes moire and morne
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. moire (CVVCV) and morne (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses moire with morne
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: moire is \mwaʁ\ while morne is \mɔʁn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71996, 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\. morne is at rank #23,945, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɔʁn\.
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 71996, this pair ranks #45,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of moire vs morne
Shared letters: emor. Private to "moire": i. Private to "morne": n.
"moire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "morne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "moire" and "morne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "moire" or "morne" show up more?
Useful next steps
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 "morne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #45,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "moire" and "morne" 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 #45,564 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.