attaquevsattaquentWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#957
“attaque” frequency rank
#8,961
“attaquent” frequency rank
9918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature attaque attaquent
Definition Action violente, agression. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe attaquer.

Same sound, different letters: attaque vs attaquent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. attaque runs 7 letters (VCCVCVV) against attaquent's 9 (VCCVCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
attaque
9 ch
attaquent

Ear matches; page differs - attaque and attaquent

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: attaque and attaquent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.tak\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “attaque” sits inside “attaquent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

attaque is recorded at frequency rank #957, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.tak\. attaquent is at rank #8,961, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.tak\.

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 9918, this pair ranks #414,932 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of attaque vs attaquent

Shared letters: aeqtu. Private to "attaque": -. Private to "attaquent": n.

"attaque" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "attaquent" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • attaqueataque · atatque · attaqeu · attaqque · attauqe · attqaue · tataque
  • attaquentataquent · atatquent · attaqeunt · attaqquent · attaquennt · attaquentt · attaquetn · attaqunet

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "attaque" for "attaquent" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "attaque" is a noun and "attaquent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "attaque" vs "attaquent" - which ranks higher?
"attaque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #957 in our French list, against #8,961 for "attaquent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "attaque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "attaquent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,932 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "attaque" and "attaquent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "attaquent vs attaquèrent". 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 #414,932 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