motivéevsmotiverConfusable pair

Quick tell: motivée is a adjective, motiver is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“motivée” is an adjective and “motiver” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,819
“motivée” frequency rank
#10,747
“motiver” frequency rank
23566
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature motivée motiver
Definition Féminin singulier de motivé. Apporter de la motivation.

Same sound, different letters: motivée vs motiver

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. motivée (CVCVCVV) and motiver (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
motivée
7 ch
motiver

Ear matches; page differs - motivée and motiver

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: motivée and motiver carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mɔ.ti.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23566, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

motivée is recorded at frequency rank #12,819, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɔ.ti.ve\. motiver is at rank #10,747, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɔ.ti.ve\.

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 23566, this pair ranks #351,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of motivée vs motiver

Shared letters: eimotv. Private to "motivée": é. Private to "motiver": r.

"motivée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "motiver" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • motiver ← mmotiver · moitver · motievr · motiverr · motivre · motivver · mottiver · motvier

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "motivée" and "motiver" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "motivée" is an adjective and "motiver" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "motivée" or "motiver" show up more?
"motiver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,747 in our French list, against #12,819 for "motivée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "motivée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "motiver" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #351,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "motivée" and "motiver" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "motivée vs motivent". 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 #351,755 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