émitvsermiteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#49,446
“émit” frequency rank
#22,557
“ermite” frequency rank
72003
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature émit ermite
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de émettre. Solitaire vivant dans un endroit retiré ou désert pour s’y livrer à des exercices de piété.

Where the eye mixes émit and ermite

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

4 ch
émit
6 ch
ermite

Look-alike desk: émit vs ermite

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: émit is \e.mi\ while ermite is \ɛʁ.mit\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72003, 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\. ermite is at rank #22,557, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛʁ.mit\.

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 72003, this pair ranks #45,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of émit vs ermite

Shared letters: imt. Private to "émit": é. Private to "ermite": er.

"émit" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "ermite" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ermiteemrite · erimte · ermiet · ermitte · ermmite · ermtie · errmite · remite

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "émit" and "ermite" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "émit" is a verb and "ermite" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "émit" or "ermite"?
"ermite" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,557 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.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "émit" and "ermite" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "émit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ermite" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "émit" and "ermite" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "edito vs émit". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #45,539 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