mortsvsmotosWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: morts is a adjective, motos is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#924
“morts” frequency rank
#13,010
“motos” frequency rank
13934
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature morts motos
Definition Masculin pluriel de mort. Pluriel de moto.

Where the eye mixes morts and motos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. morts (CVCCC) and motos (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
morts
5 ch
motos

Look-alike desk: morts vs motos

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: morts is \mɔʁ\ while motos is \mo.to\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13934, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

morts is recorded at frequency rank #924, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɔʁ\. motos is at rank #13,010, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mo.to\.

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 13934, this pair ranks #398,900 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of morts vs motos

Shared letters: most. Private to "morts": r. Private to "motos": -.

"morts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "motos" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mortsmmorts · morrts · morst · mortss · mortts · motrs · mrots · omrts
  • motosmmotos · moots · motoss · motso · mottos · mtoos · omtos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "morts" and "motos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "morts" is an adjective and "motos" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "morts" vs "motos" - which ranks higher?
"morts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #924 in our French list, against #13,010 for "motos". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "morts" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "motos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #398,900 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "morts" and "motos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mito vs motos". 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 #398,900 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