émailvsémitTell them apart

Quick tell: émail is a noun, émit is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#23,739
“émail” frequency rank
#49,446
“émit” frequency rank
73185
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature émail émit
Definition Matière fondante, composée de différents minéraux, laquelle, vitrifiée et plus ou moins opaque, peut recevoir différentes couleurs et être appliquée à l’aide du feu sur certains ouvrages d’or, d’argent, de cuivre, etc., pour les orner. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de émettre.

Where the eye mixes émail and émit

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
émail
4 ch
émit

Why the eye confuses émail with émit

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: émail is \e.maj\ while émit is \e.mi\. 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 73185, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

émail is recorded at frequency rank #23,739, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.maj\. 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 73185, this pair ranks #41,329 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of émail vs émit

Shared letters: imé. Private to "émail": al. Private to "émit": t.

"émail" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC  ·  "émit" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "émail" and "émit" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "émail" is a noun and "émit" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "émail" vs "émit" - which ranks higher?
"émail" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,739 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.

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 "émail" 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 #41,329 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "émail" and "émit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "edito vs émit". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #41,329 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