Which to use
“ennuyant” is an adjective and “essuyant” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #30,591
- “ennuyant” frequency rank
- #48,507
- “essuyant” frequency rank
- 79098
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ennuyant | essuyant |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui cause de l’ennui, de la lassitude. | Participe présent de essuyer. |
Where the eye mixes ennuyant and essuyant
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. ennuyant and essuyant follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between ennuyant and essuyant
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ennuyant is \ɑ̃.nɥi.jɑ̃\ while essuyant is \e.sɥi.jɑ̃\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79098, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ennuyant is recorded at frequency rank #30,591, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.nɥi.jɑ̃\. essuyant is at rank #48,507, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɥi.jɑ̃\.
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 79098, this pair ranks #24,070 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ennuyant vs essuyant
Shared letters: aentuy. Private to "ennuyant": -. Private to "essuyant": s.
"ennuyant" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC · "essuyant" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "ennuyant" for "essuyant" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "ennuyant" or "essuyant" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "ennuyant" and "essuyant" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "ennuyant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essuyant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #24,070 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ennuyant" and "essuyant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ennuyais vs ennuyant". 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 #24,070 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.