mouillagevsmoulageConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#29,454
“mouillage” frequency rank
#27,136
“moulage” frequency rank
56590
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mouillage moulage
Definition Action de mouiller. Action de mouler, de couler une matière dans un moule creux pour l'obtention d'un objet après solidification ; fonte.

Where the eye mixes mouillage and moulage

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. mouillage runs 9 letters (CVVVCCVCV) against moulage's 7 (CVVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
mouillage
7 ch
moulage

Look-alike desk: mouillage vs moulage

A purely visual mix-up. mouillage (\mu.jaʒ\) and moulage (\mu.laʒ\) 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 56590, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mouillage is recorded at frequency rank #29,454, classified as anoun, pronounced \mu.jaʒ\. moulage is at rank #27,136, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mu.laʒ\.

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 56590, this pair ranks #120,147 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mouillage vs moulage

Shared letters: aeglmou. Private to "mouillage": i. Private to "moulage": -.

"mouillage" · 9 letters · shape CVVVCCVCV  ·  "moulage" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mouillagemmouillage · moiullage · mouilage · mouilalge · mouillaeg · mouillagge · mouillgae · moulilage
  • moulagemmoulage · moluage · moualge · moulaeg · moulagge · moulgae · moullage · muolage

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mouillage" for "moulage" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mu.jaʒ\ versus \mu.laʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "mouillage" or "moulage" show up more?
"moulage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,136 in our French list, against #29,454 for "mouillage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mouillage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moulage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,147 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mouillage" and "moulage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "moulage vs moulages". 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 #120,147 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