morinvsmotionWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#10,909
“morin” frequency rank
#6,980
“motion” frequency rank
17889
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature morin motion
Definition Principe colorant du bois jaune. Mouvement de va-et-vient du métier servant à faire la torsion des fils.

Where the eye mixes morin and motion

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

5 ch
morin
6 ch
motion

Look-alike desk: morin vs motion

A purely visual mix-up. morin (\mɔ.ʁɛ̃\) and motion (\mɔ.sjɔ̃\) 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 17889, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

morin is recorded at frequency rank #10,909, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɔ.ʁɛ̃\. motion is at rank #6,980, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔ.sjɔ̃\.

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 17889, this pair ranks #380,962 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of morin vs motion

Shared letters: imno. Private to "morin": r. Private to "motion": t.

"morin" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "motion" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • morinmmorin · moirn · morinn · morni · morrin · mroin · omrin
  • motionmmotion · moiton · motino · motionn · motoin · mottion · mtoion · omtion

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "morin" for "motion" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɔ.ʁɛ̃\ versus \mɔ.sjɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "morin" or "motion"?
"motion" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,980 in our French list, against #10,909 for "morin". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "morin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "motion" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #380,962 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "morin" and "motion" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marlin vs morin". 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 #380,962 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