appliquentvsappliquerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#8,497
“appliquent” frequency rank
#2,702
“appliquer” frequency rank
11199
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appliquent appliquer
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe appliquer. Mettre une chose sur une autre, soit pour qu’elle y demeure adhérente, soit pour qu’elle y laisse une empreinte, soit simplement pour qu’elle y touche.

Where the eye mixes appliquent and appliquer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. appliquent runs 10 letters (VCCCVCVVCC) against appliquer's 9 (VCCCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
appliquent
9 ch
appliquer

Look-alike desk: appliquent vs appliquer

A purely visual mix-up. appliquent (\a.plik\) and appliquer (\a.pli.ke\) 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 11199, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appliquent is recorded at frequency rank #8,497, classified as averb, pronounced \a.plik\. appliquer is at rank #2,702, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.pli.ke\.

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 11199, this pair ranks #410,068 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of appliquent vs appliquer

Shared letters: aeilpqu. Private to "appliquent": nt. Private to "appliquer": r.

"appliquent" · 10 letters · shape VCCCVCVVCC  ·  "appliquer" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appliquentapliquent · aplpiquent · appilquent · appliqeunt · appliqquent · appliquennt · appliquentt · appliquetn
  • appliquerapliquer · aplpiquer · appilquer · appliqeur · appliqquer · appliquerr · appliqure · appliuqer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "appliquent" and "appliquer" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\a.plik\ versus \a.pli.ke\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "appliquent" or "appliquer"?
"appliquer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,702 in our French list, against #8,497 for "appliquent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "appliquent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appliquer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #410,068 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appliquent" and "appliquer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appliquent vs appliqueront". 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 #410,068 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