moitiévsmortierConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#849
“moitié” frequency rank
#13,639
“mortier” frequency rank
14488
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moitié mortier
Definition L’une des parties d’un tout divisé, partagé également en deux. Mélange pâteux, destiné à durcir, d’un liant et d’agrégats, servant à lier et sceller les pierres, les parpaings ou les briques d’une construction. Généralement il s'agit d'un mélange de sable, de ciment ou de chaux et d'eau.

Where the eye mixes moitié and mortier

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. moitié runs 6 letters (CVVCVV) against mortier's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
moitié
7 ch
mortier

Visual trap between moitié and mortier

A purely visual mix-up. moitié (\mwa.tje\) and mortier (\mɔʁ.tje\) 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 14488, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

moitié is recorded at frequency rank #849, classified as anoun, pronounced \mwa.tje\. mortier is at rank #13,639, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁ.tje\.

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 14488, this pair ranks #396,420 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of moitié vs mortier

Shared letters: imot. Private to "moitié": é. Private to "mortier": er.

"moitié" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "mortier" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mortier ← mmortier · moriter · morrtier · morteir · mortierr · mortire · morttier · motrier

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "moitié" for "mortier" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mwa.tje\ versus \mɔʁ.tje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "moitié" or "mortier"?
"moitié" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #849 in our French list, against #13,639 for "mortier". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "moitié" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mortier" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #396,420 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moitié" and "mortier" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "morfler vs mortier". 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 #396,420 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