appuyavsappuyantConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#49,487
“appuya” frequency rank
#7,653
“appuyant” frequency rank
57140
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appuya appuyant
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe appuyer. Participe présent du verbe appuyer.

Where the eye mixes appuya and appuyant

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. appuya runs 6 letters (VCCVVV) against appuyant's 8 (VCCVVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
appuya
8 ch
appuyant

Visual trap between appuya and appuyant

A purely visual mix-up. appuya (\a.pɥi.ja\) and appuyant (\a.pɥi.jɑ̃\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “appuya” sits inside “appuyant”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57140, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appuya is recorded at frequency rank #49,487, classified as averb, pronounced \a.pɥi.ja\. appuyant is at rank #7,653, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.pɥi.jɑ̃\.

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 57140, this pair ranks #116,809 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of appuya vs appuyant

Shared letters: apuy. Private to "appuya": -. Private to "appuyant": nt.

"appuya" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV  ·  "appuyant" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appuya ← appuay · appuyya · appyua · apupya · apuya · papuya
  • appuyant ← appuaynt · appuyannt · appuyantt · appuyatn · appuynat · appuyyant · appyuant · apupyant

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "appuya" for "appuyant" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.pɥi.ja\ versus \a.pɥi.jɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "appuya" vs "appuyant" - which ranks higher?
"appuyant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,653 in our French list, against #49,487 for "appuya". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "appuya" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appuyant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #116,809 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appuya" and "appuyant" 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 #116,809 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