entervsépaterConfusable pair

Which to use

“enter” and “épater” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#39,780
“enter” frequency rank
#38,616
“épater” frequency rank
78396
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature enter épater
Definition Greffer en insérant un scion. Priver de l’usage d’une patte.

Where the eye mixes enter and épater

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. enter runs 5 letters (VCCVC) against épater's 6 (VCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
enter
6 ch
épater

Why the eye confuses enter with épater

A purely visual mix-up. enter (\ɑ̃.te\) and épater (\e.pa.te\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78396, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

enter is recorded at frequency rank #39,780, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.te\. épater is at rank #38,616, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.pa.te\.

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 78396, this pair ranks #25,859 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of enter vs épater

Shared letters: ert. Private to "enter": n. Private to "épater": apé.

"enter" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "épater" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • enter ← enetr · ennter · entter · etner · neter

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "enter" for "épater" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɑ̃.te\ versus \e.pa.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "enter" or "épater"?
"épater" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,616 in our French list, against #39,780 for "enter". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "enter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "épater" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,859 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "enter" and "épater" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enter vs entêté". 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 #25,859 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