disaitvsduraitWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,360
“disait” frequency rank
#28,523
“durait” frequency rank
29883
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature disait durait
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de dire. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de durer.

Where the eye mixes disait and durait

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. disait and durait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
disait
6 ch
durait

Visual trap between disait and durait

A purely visual mix-up. disait (\di.zɛ\) and durait (\dy.ʁɛ\) 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 29883, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

disait is recorded at frequency rank #1,360, classified as averb, pronounced \di.zɛ\. durait is at rank #28,523, tagged as averb, pronounced \dy.ʁɛ\.

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 29883, this pair ranks #313,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of disait vs durait

Shared letters: adit. Private to "disait": s. Private to "durait": ru.

"disait" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "durait" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • disait ← ddisait · diasit · disaitt · disati · disiat · dissait · dsiait · idsait
  • durait ← ddurait · druait · duarit · duraitt · durati · duriat · durrait · udrait

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "disait" and "durait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\di.zɛ\ versus \dy.ʁɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "disait" or "durait"?
"disait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,360 in our French list, against #28,523 for "durait". 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 "disait" and "durait" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "disait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "durait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #313,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "disait" and "durait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "durait vs durerait". 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 #313,867 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