acquisvsacquitWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#2,605
“acquis” frequency rank
#28,813
“acquit” frequency rank
31418
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acquis acquit
Definition Qui est obtenu, sans que cela ait été auparavant déjà possédé. Mention mise au bas ou au dos d’un acte portant obligation pour constater la libération du débiteur.

Same sound, different letters: acquis vs acquit

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
acquis
6 ch
acquit

Homophone desk: acquis vs acquit

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: acquis and acquit carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.ki\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - s in “acquis” becomes t in “acquit”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31418, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acquis is recorded at frequency rank #2,605, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.ki\. acquit is at rank #28,813, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.ki\.

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 31418, this pair ranks #303,912 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acquis vs acquit

Shared letters: aciqu. Private to "acquis": s. Private to "acquit": t.

"acquis" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC  ·  "acquit" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acquisaccquis · acqius · acqquis · acquiss · acqusi · acuqis · aqcuis · caquis
  • acquitaccquit · acqiut · acqquit · acquitt · acquti · acuqit · aqcuit · caquit

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "acquis" and "acquit" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "acquis" is an adjective and "acquit" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "acquis" or "acquit" show up more?
"acquis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,605 in our French list, against #28,813 for "acquit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "acquis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acquit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #303,912 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acquis" and "acquit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acquit vs aki". 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 #303,912 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