appuievsappuyerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,400
“appuie” frequency rank
#4,546
“appuyer” frequency rank
8946
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appuie appuyer
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe appuyer. Placer contre quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes appuie and appuyer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. appuie runs 6 letters (VCCVVV) against appuyer's 7 (VCCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
appuie
7 ch
appuyer

Look-alike desk: appuie vs appuyer

A purely visual mix-up. appuie (\a.pɥi\) and appuyer (\a.pɥi.je\) 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 8946, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appuie is recorded at frequency rank #4,400, classified as averb, pronounced \a.pɥi\. appuyer is at rank #4,546, tagged as averb, 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 8946, this pair ranks #418,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of appuie vs appuyer

Shared letters: aepu. Private to "appuie": i. Private to "appuyer": ry.

"appuie" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV  ·  "appuyer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appuie ← appiue · appuei · apuie · apupie · papuie
  • appuyer ← appueyr · appuyerr · appuyre · appuyyer · appyuer · apupyer · apuyer · papuyer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "appuie" and "appuyer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\a.pɥi\ versus \a.pɥi.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "appuie" vs "appuyer" - which ranks higher?
"appuie" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,400 in our French list, against #4,546 for "appuyer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "appuie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appuyer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #418,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appuie" and "appuyer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appuya vs appuyer". 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 #418,320 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