Which to use
“motivation” and “motivations” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,512
- “motivation” frequency rank
- #10,360
- “motivations” frequency rank
- 14872
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | motivation | motivations |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Désir ou volonté spontanés. | Pluriel de motivation. |
Same sound, different letters: motivation vs motivations
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 10 letters. motivation runs 10 letters (CVCVCVCVVC) against motivations's 11 (CVCVCVCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - motivation / motivations
This is the hard kind. motivation and motivations are pronounced identically (\mɔ.ti.va.sjɔ̃\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “motivation” sits inside “motivations”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14872, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
motivation is recorded at frequency rank #4,512, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɔ.ti.va.sjɔ̃\. motivations is at rank #10,360, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɔ.ti.va.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 14872, this pair ranks #394,852 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of motivation vs motivations
Shared letters: aimnotv. Private to "motivation": -. Private to "motivations": s.
"motivation" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCVCVVC · "motivations" · 11 letters · shape CVCVCVCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- motivation ← mmotivation · moitvation · motiavtion · motivaiton · motivatino · motivationn · motivatoin · motivattion
- motivations ← mmotivations · moitvations · motiavtions · motivaitons · motivatinos · motivationns · motivationss · motivatiosn
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "motivation" and "motivations" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "motivation" or "motivations"?
After this comparison
"motivation" and "motivations" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "motivation" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "motivations" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #394,852 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "motivation" and "motivations" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "motivations vs mutilations". 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 #394,852 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.