appuientvsappuisWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: appuient is a verb, appuis is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“appuient” is a verb and “appuis” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,197
“appuient” frequency rank
#14,198
“appuis” frequency rank
28395
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appuient appuis
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe appuyer. Pluriel de appui.

Same sound, different letters: appuient vs appuis

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. appuient runs 8 letters (VCCVVVCC) against appuis's 6 (VCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
appuient
6 ch
appuis

Same sound, different spelling - appuient / appuis

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: appuient and appuis carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.pɥi\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28395, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appuient is recorded at frequency rank #14,197, classified as averb, pronounced \a.pɥi\. appuis is at rank #14,198, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.pɥi\.

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 28395, this pair ranks #323,119 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of appuient vs appuis

Shared letters: aipu. Private to "appuient": ent. Private to "appuis": s.

"appuient" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC  ·  "appuis" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appuient ← appiuent · appueint · appuiennt · appuientt · appuietn · appuinet · apuient · apupient
  • appuis ← appius · appuiss · appusi · apuis · apupis · papuis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "appuient" and "appuis" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "appuient" is a verb and "appuis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "appuient" or "appuis" show up more?
"appuient" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,197 in our French list, against #14,198 for "appuis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "appuient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appuis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #323,119 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appuient" and "appuis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appuis vs appuya". 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 #323,119 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