aigrisvsapprisWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: aigris is a adjective, appris is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#46,567
“aigris” frequency rank
#1,315
“appris” frequency rank
47882
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aigris appris
Definition Masculin pluriel de aigri. Participe passé masculin (singulier ou pluriel) du verbe apprendre.

Where the eye mixes aigris and appris

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. aigris (VVCCVC) and appris (VCCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
aigris
6 ch
appris

Look-alike desk: aigris vs appris

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: aigris is \e.ɡʁi\ while appris is \a.pʁi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47882, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aigris is recorded at frequency rank #46,567, classified as anadj, pronounced \e.ɡʁi\. appris is at rank #1,315, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.pʁi\.

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 47882, this pair ranks #183,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of aigris vs appris

Shared letters: airs. Private to "aigris": g. Private to "appris": p.

"aigris" · 6 letters · shape VVCCVC  ·  "appris" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aigris ← agiris · aiggris · aigirs · aigriss · aigrris · aigrsi · airgis · iagris
  • appris ← appirs · appriss · apprris · apprsi · aprpis · papris

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aigris" for "appris" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aigris" is an adjective and "appris" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "aigris" or "appris" show up more?
"appris" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,315 in our French list, against #46,567 for "aigris". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aigris" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appris" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #183,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aigris" and "appris" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aigris vs aris". 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 #183,399 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