agitentvsagiterWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,605
“agitent” frequency rank
#19,199
“agiter” frequency rank
45804
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature agitent agiter
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe agiter. Secouer vivement en tout sens.

Where the eye mixes agitent and agiter

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. agitent runs 7 letters (VCVCVCC) against agiter's 6 (VCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
agitent
6 ch
agiter

Why the eye confuses agitent with agiter

A purely visual mix-up. agitent (\a.ʒit\) and agiter (\a.ʒi.te\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45804, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

agitent is recorded at frequency rank #26,605, classified as averb, pronounced \a.ʒit\. agiter is at rank #19,199, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.ʒi.te\.

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 45804, this pair ranks #199,909 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of agitent vs agiter

Shared letters: aegit. Private to "agitent": n. Private to "agiter": r.

"agitent" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCC  ·  "agiter" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • agitentaggitent · agietnt · agitennt · agitentt · agitetn · agitnet · agittent · agtient
  • agiteraggiter · agietr · agiterr · agitre · agitter · agtier · aigter · gaiter

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "agitent" and "agiter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\a.ʒit\ versus \a.ʒi.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "agitent" or "agiter" show up more?
"agiter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,199 in our French list, against #26,605 for "agitent". 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 "agitent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "agiter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #199,909 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "agitent" and "agiter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "agitées vs agitent". 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 #199,909 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