appartientvsapportaientTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,942
“appartient” frequency rank
#45,436
“apportaient” frequency rank
47378
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appartient apportaient
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de appartenir. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif imparfait du verbe apporter.

Where the eye mixes appartient and apportaient

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. appartient runs 10 letters (VCCVCCVVCC) against apportaient's 11 (VCCVCCVVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
appartient
11 ch
apportaient

Why the eye confuses appartient with apportaient

A purely visual mix-up. appartient (\a.paʁ.tjɛ̃\) and apportaient (\a.pɔʁ.tɛ\) 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 47378, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appartient is recorded at frequency rank #1,942, classified as averb, pronounced \a.paʁ.tjɛ̃\. apportaient is at rank #45,436, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.pɔʁ.tɛ\.

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 47378, this pair ranks #187,456 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of appartient vs apportaient

Shared letters: aeinprt. Private to "appartient": -. Private to "apportaient": o.

"appartient" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVVCC  ·  "apportaient" · 11 letters · shape VCCVCCVVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appartient ← apaprtient · apartient · apparitent · apparrtient · apparteint · appartiennt · appartientt · appartietn
  • apportaient ← apoprtaient · aportaient · apporatient · apporrtaient · apportaeint · apportaiennt · apportaientt · apportaietn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "appartient" for "apportaient" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.paʁ.tjɛ̃\ versus \a.pɔʁ.tɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "appartient" or "apportaient"?
"appartient" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,942 in our French list, against #45,436 for "apportaient". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "appartient" and "apportaient" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "appartient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "apportaient" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #187,456 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appartient" and "apportaient" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "apportaient vs apportait". 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 #187,456 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