moirevsmorteConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#48,051
“moire” frequency rank
#1,877
“morte” frequency rank
49928
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moire morte
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. Femme décédée ; défunte.

Where the eye mixes moire and morte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
moire
5 ch
morte

Look-alike desk: moire vs morte

A purely visual mix-up. moire (\mwaʁ\) and morte (\mɔʁt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49928, 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\. morte is at rank #1,877, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁt\.

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 49928, this pair ranks #166,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of moire vs morte

Shared letters: emor. Private to "moire": i. Private to "morte": t.

"moire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "morte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moiremiore · mmoire · moier · moirre · morie · omire
  • mortemmorte · morrte · mortte · motre · mrote · omrte

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "moire" and "morte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mwaʁ\ versus \mɔʁt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "moire" vs "morte" - which ranks higher?
"morte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,877 in our French list, against #48,051 for "moire". 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 "moire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "morte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #166,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moire" and "morte" 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 #166,725 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