moquettevsmuetteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: moquette is a noun, muette is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“moquette” is a noun and “muette” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,695
“moquette” frequency rank
#18,540
“muette” frequency rank
40235
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature moquette muette
Definition Étoffe à chaîne et à trame de fil, veloutée en laine, dont on fait des tapis. Féminin singulier de muet.

Where the eye mixes moquette and muette

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

8 ch
moquette
6 ch
muette

Visual trap between moquette and muette

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: moquette is \mɔ.kɛt\ while muette is \mɥɛt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40235, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

moquette is recorded at frequency rank #21,695, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɔ.kɛt\. muette is at rank #18,540, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɥɛt\.

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 40235, this pair ranks #242,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of moquette vs muette

Shared letters: emtu. Private to "moquette": oq. Private to "muette": -.

"moquette" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV  ·  "muette" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • moquettemmoquette · moqeutte · moqquette · moquete · moquetet · moqutete · mouqette · mqouette
  • muettemmuette · muetet · mutete · umette

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "moquette" and "muette" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "moquette" is a noun and "muette" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "moquette" or "muette" show up more?
"muette" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,540 in our French list, against #21,695 for "moquette". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "moquette" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muette" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #242,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "moquette" and "muette" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moquée vs moquette". 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 #242,021 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