attenditvsattendreTell them apart

Which to use

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

#38,153
“attendit” frequency rank
#784
“attendre” frequency rank
38937
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature attendit attendre
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de attendre. Ne pas bouger, rester là où l’on est pour la venue de quelque chose ou de quelqu’un.

Where the eye mixes attendit and attendre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. attendit (VCCVCCVC) and attendre (VCCVCCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
attendit
8 ch
attendre

Look-alike desk: attendit vs attendre

A purely visual mix-up. attendit (\a.tɑ̃.di\) and attendre (\a.tɑ̃dʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38937, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

attendit is recorded at frequency rank #38,153, classified as averb, pronounced \a.tɑ̃.di\. attendre is at rank #784, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.tɑ̃dʁ\.

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 38937, this pair ranks #251,731 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of attendit vs attendre

Shared letters: adent. Private to "attendit": i. Private to "attendre": r.

"attendit" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "attendre" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • attendit ← atendit · atetndit · attednit · attenddit · attenditt · attendti · attenidt · attenndit
  • attendre ← atendre · atetndre · attednre · attenddre · attender · attendrre · attenndre · attenrde

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "attendit" and "attendre" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\a.tɑ̃.di\ versus \a.tɑ̃dʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "attendit" vs "attendre" - which ranks higher?
"attendre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #784 in our French list, against #38,153 for "attendit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "attendit" and "attendre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "attendit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "attendre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #251,731 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "attendit" and "attendre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "attendit vs attendrir". 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 #251,731 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