Which to use
“appui” is a noun and “appuya” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,755
- “appui” frequency rank
- #49,487
- “appuya” frequency rank
- 52242
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | appui | appuya |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ce qui sert à soutenir une chose ou une personne pour l’empêcher de tomber, de chanceler, etc. | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe appuyer. |
Where the eye mixes appui and appuya
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: appui vs appuya
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: appui is \a.pɥi\ while appuya is \a.pɥi.ja\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52242, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
appui is recorded at frequency rank #2,755, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.pɥi\. appuya is at rank #49,487, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.pɥi.ja\.
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 52242, this pair ranks #149,083 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of appui vs appuya
Shared letters: apu. Private to "appui": i. Private to "appuya": y.
"appui" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV · "appuya" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "appui" and "appuya" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "appui" or "appuya"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "appui" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "appuya" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #149,083 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "appui" and "appuya" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appuya vs appuyait". 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 #149,083 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.