apportaientvsapportaitTell them apart

Which to use

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

#45,436
“apportaient” frequency rank
#21,529
“apportait” frequency rank
66965
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Same sound, different letters: apportaient vs apportait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. apportaient runs 11 letters (VCCVCCVVVCC) against apportait's 9 (VCCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch
apportaient
9 ch
apportait

Same sound, different spelling - apportaient / apportait

This is the hard kind. apportaient and apportait are pronounced identically (\a.pɔʁ.tɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66965, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apportaient is recorded at frequency rank #45,436, classified as averb, pronounced \a.pɔʁ.tɛ\. apportait is at rank #21,529, 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 66965, this pair ranks #65,509 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of apportaient vs apportait

Shared letters: aioprt. Private to "apportaient": en. Private to "apportait": -.

"apportaient" · 11 letters · shape VCCVCCVVVCC  ·  "apportait" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • apportaient ← apoprtaient · aportaient · apporatient · apporrtaient · apportaeint · apportaiennt · apportaientt · apportaietn
  • apportait ← apoprtait · aportait · apporatit · apporrtait · apportaitt · apportati · apportiat · apporttait

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "apportaient" for "apportait" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\a.pɔʁ.tɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "apportaient" vs "apportait" - which ranks higher?
"apportait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,529 in our French list, against #45,436 for "apportaient". 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 "apportaient" / "apportait". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "apportaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "apportait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,509 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "apportaient" and "apportait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "apportaient vs apportant". 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 #65,509 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