Which to use
“émit” is a verb and “evil” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,446
- “émit” frequency rank
- #17,132
- “evil” frequency rank
- 66578
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | émit | evil |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de émettre. | Malin, scélérat, diabolique. |
Where the eye mixes émit and evil
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. émit and evil follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses émit with evil
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: émit is \e.mi\ while evil is \ˈiː.vəl\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66578, 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\. evil is at rank #17,132, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈiː.vəl\.
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 66578, this pair ranks #67,193 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of émit vs evil
Shared letters: i. Private to "émit": mté. Private to "evil": elv.
"émit" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "evil" · 4 letters · shape VCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- evil ← eivl · evill · evli · evvil
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "émit" for "evil" ever safe?
Which is more common, "émit" or "evil"?
What to do next
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 "evil" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #67,193 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "émit" and "evil" 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 #67,193 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.