morsevsmorsureWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#25,049
“morse” frequency rank
#21,089
“morsure” frequency rank
46138
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature morse morsure
Definition Espèce de mammifère marin amphibie très grand, vivant autour du pôle Nord, à allure massive, aux moustaches drues, et de longues défenses chez le mâle. Action de mordre.

Where the eye mixes morse and morsure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. morse runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against morsure's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
morse
7 ch
morsure

Visual trap between morse and morsure

A purely visual mix-up. morse (\mɔʁs\) and morsure (\mɔʁ.syʁ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46138, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

morse is recorded at frequency rank #25,049, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁs\. morsure is at rank #21,089, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔʁ.syʁ\.

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 46138, this pair ranks #197,310 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of morse vs morsure

Shared letters: emors. Private to "morse": -. Private to "morsure": u.

"morse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "morsure" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • morse ← mmorse · mores · morrse · morsse · mosre · mrose · omrse
  • morsure ← mmorsure · morrsure · morsrue · morssure · morsuer · morsurre · morusre · mosrure

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "morse" for "morsure" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɔʁs\ versus \mɔʁ.syʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "morse" or "morsure"?
"morsure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,089 in our French list, against #25,049 for "morse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "morse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "morsure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #197,310 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "morse" and "morsure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moisie vs morse". 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 #197,310 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