edit vs était, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#12,959
“edit” frequency rank: #64
“était” frequency rank: 13023
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	edit	était
Definition	Modification , correction d'un document.	Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait du verbe être.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set edit and était apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

edit

5 ch

était

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: edit is \ˈɛd.ɪt\ while était is \e.tɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13023, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

edit is recorded at frequency rank #12,959, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈɛd.ɪt\. était is at rank #64, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.tɛ\.

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 13023, this pair ranks #402,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of edit vs était

Shared letters: it. Private to "edit": de. Private to "était": aé.

"edit" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "était" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

edit ← deit · eddit · editt · edti · eidt

Frequency comparison

edit#12,959

était#64

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "edit" and "était" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "edit" is a noun and "était" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "edit" or "était"?

"était" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #64 in our French list, against #12,959 for "edit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering edit vs était

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “edit”; for a verb, it's “était”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “edit” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable