Which to use
“appui” is a noun and “appuyé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,755
- “appui” frequency rank
- #8,959
- “appuyé” frequency rank
- 11714
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | appui | appuyé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ce qui sert à soutenir une chose ou une personne pour l’empêcher de tomber, de chanceler, etc. | Qui pèse sur. |
Where the eye mixes appui and appuyé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between appui and appuyé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: appui is \a.pɥi\ while appuyé is \a.pɥi.je\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11714, 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\. appuyé is at rank #8,959, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.pɥi.je\.
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 11714, this pair ranks #408,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of appui vs appuyé
Shared letters: apu. Private to "appui": i. Private to "appuyé": yé.
"appui" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV · "appuyé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- appui ← appiu · apui · apupi · papui
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "appui" and "appuyé" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "appui" vs "appuyé" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "appui" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "appuyé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #408,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "appui" and "appuyé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appuya vs appuyé". 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 #408,126 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.