émitvsépisTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#49,446
“émit” frequency rank
#26,234
“épis” frequency rank
75680
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature émit épis
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de émettre. Pluriel de épi.

Where the eye mixes émit and épis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. émit and épis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
émit
4 ch
épis

Visual trap between émit and épis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: émit is \e.mi\ while épis is \e.pi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75680, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

émit is recorded at frequency rank #49,446, classified as averb, pronounced \e.mi\. épis is at rank #26,234, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.pi\.

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 75680, this pair ranks #33,335 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of émit vs épis

Shared letters: ié. Private to "émit": mt. Private to "épis": ps.

"émit" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "épis" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "émit" for "épis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "émit" is a verb and "épis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "émit" or "épis"?
"épis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,234 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

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "émit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "épis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,335 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "émit" and "épis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "edito vs émit". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #33,335 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