écartentvsécarterWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,339
“écartent” frequency rank
#9,101
“écarter” frequency rank
44440
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écartent écarter
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de écarter. Séparer ; éloigner.

Where the eye mixes écartent and écarter

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. écartent runs 8 letters (VCVCCVCC) against écarter's 7 (VCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
écartent
7 ch
écarter

Visual trap between écartent and écarter

A purely visual mix-up. écartent (\e.kaʁt\) and écarter (\e.kaʁ.te\) 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 44440, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écartent is recorded at frequency rank #35,339, classified as averb, pronounced \e.kaʁt\. écarter is at rank #9,101, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.kaʁ.te\.

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 44440, this pair ranks #210,465 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of écartent vs écarter

Shared letters: acerté. Private to "écartent": n. Private to "écarter": -.

"écartent" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVCC  ·  "écarter" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "écartent" and "écarter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\e.kaʁt\ versus \e.kaʁ.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "écartent" vs "écarter" - which ranks higher?
"écarter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,101 in our French list, against #35,339 for "écartent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "écartent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "écarter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #210,465 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "écartent" and "écarter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "écartement vs écartent". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #210,465 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