émusvseutWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: émus is a adjective, eut is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“émus” is an adjective and “eut” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,822
“émus” frequency rank
#2,421
“eut” frequency rank
37243
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature émus eut
Definition Masculin pluriel de ému. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe avoir.

Where the eye mixes émus and eut

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
émus
3 ch
eut

Why the eye confuses émus with eut

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: émus is \e.my\ while eut is \y\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37243, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

émus is recorded at frequency rank #34,822, classified as anadj, pronounced \e.my\. eut is at rank #2,421, tagged as averb, pronounced \y\.

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 37243, this pair ranks #263,879 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of émus vs eut

Shared letters: u. Private to "émus": msé. Private to "eut": et.

"émus" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "eut" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "émus" and "eut" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "émus" is an adjective and "eut" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "émus" vs "eut" - which ranks higher?
"eut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,421 in our French list, against #34,822 for "émus". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "émus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "eut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #263,879 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "émus" and "eut" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "émit vs émus". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #263,879 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