aggravevsaggraventWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: aggrave is a noun, aggravent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aggrave” is a noun and “aggravent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,927
“aggrave” frequency rank
#38,634
“aggravent” frequency rank
57561
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aggrave aggravent
Definition Seconde fulmination solennelle d’un monitoire. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe aggraver.

Same sound, different letters: aggrave vs aggravent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. aggrave runs 7 letters (VCCCVCV) against aggravent's 9 (VCCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
aggrave
9 ch
aggravent

Ear matches; page differs - aggrave and aggravent

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: aggrave and aggravent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.ɡʁav\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “aggrave” sits inside “aggravent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57561, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aggrave is recorded at frequency rank #18,927, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ɡʁav\. aggravent is at rank #38,634, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.ɡʁav\.

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 57561, this pair ranks #114,289 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of aggrave vs aggravent

Shared letters: aegrv. Private to "aggrave": -. Private to "aggravent": nt.

"aggrave" · 7 letters · shape VCCCVCV  ·  "aggravent" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aggrave ← aggarve · aggraev · aggravve · aggrrave · aggrvae · agrave · agrgave · gagrave
  • aggravent ← aggarvent · aggraevnt · aggravennt · aggraventt · aggravetn · aggravnet · aggravvent · aggrravent

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aggrave" for "aggravent" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aggrave" is a noun and "aggravent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "aggrave" or "aggravent" show up more?
"aggrave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,927 in our French list, against #38,634 for "aggravent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "aggrave" / "aggravent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aggrave" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aggravent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #114,289 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aggrave" and "aggravent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aggravante vs aggravent". 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 #114,289 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