motivervsmotivésTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#10,747
“motiver” frequency rank
#13,842
“motivés” frequency rank
24589
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature motiver motivés
Definition Apporter de la motivation. Masculin pluriel de motivé.

Same sound, different letters: motiver vs motivés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. motiver and motivés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
motiver
7 ch
motivés

Ear matches; page differs - motiver and motivés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: motiver and motivés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mɔ.ti.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, 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 24589, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

motiver is recorded at frequency rank #10,747, classified as averb, pronounced \mɔ.ti.ve\. motivés is at rank #13,842, tagged as anadj, 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 24589, this pair ranks #345,750 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of motiver vs motivés

Shared letters: imotv. Private to "motiver": er. Private to "motivés": sé.

"motiver" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "motivés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "motiver" for "motivés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "motiver" is a verb and "motivés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "motiver" vs "motivés" - which ranks higher?
"motiver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,747 in our French list, against #13,842 for "motivés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"motiver" and "motivés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "motiver" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "motivés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #345,750 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "motiver" and "motivés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "motivés vs mottes". 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 #345,750 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