eatvsémitWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,139
“eat” frequency rank
#49,446
“émit” frequency rank
79585
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature eat émit
Definition Manger. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de émettre.

Where the eye mixes eat and émit

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. eat runs 3 letters (VVC) against émit's 4 (VCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
eat
4 ch
émit

Look-alike desk: eat vs émit

A purely visual mix-up. eat (\iːt\) and émit (\e.mi\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79585, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

eat is recorded at frequency rank #30,139, classified as averb, pronounced \iːt\. émit is at rank #49,446, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.mi\.

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 79585, this pair ranks #22,929 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of eat vs émit

Shared letters: t. Private to "eat": ae. Private to "émit": imé.

"eat" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "émit" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "eat" for "émit" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\iːt\ versus \e.mi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "eat" or "émit"?
"eat" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,139 in our French list, against #49,446 for "émit". 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 "eat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "émit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,929 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "eat" and "émit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "edito vs émit". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #22,929 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