moirevsmorsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#48,051
“moire” frequency rank
#34,201
“mors” frequency rank
82252
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moire mors
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. Ensemble des pièces de fer qui servent à brider un cheval, comme l’embouchure, les branches, la gourmette, etc.

Where the eye mixes moire and mors

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

5 ch
moire
4 ch
mors

Look-alike desk: moire vs mors

A purely visual mix-up. moire (\mwaʁ\) and mors (\mɔʁ\) 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 82252, 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\. mors is at rank #34,201, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁ\.

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 82252, this pair ranks #17,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of moire vs mors

Shared letters: mor. Private to "moire": ei. Private to "mors": s.

"moire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "mors" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moire ← miore · mmoire · moier · moirre · morie · omire
  • mors ← mmors · morrs · morss · mosr · mros · omrs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "moire" for "mors" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mwaʁ\ versus \mɔʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "moire" vs "mors" - which ranks higher?
"mors" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,201 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.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "moire" and "mors" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "moire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mors" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moire" and "mors" 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 #17,088 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