envoyaientvsenvoyaitTell them apart

Which to use

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

#35,504
“envoyaient” frequency rank
#16,611
“envoyait” frequency rank
52115
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature envoyaient envoyait
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de envoyer. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de envoyer.

Same sound, different letters: envoyaient vs envoyait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. envoyaient runs 10 letters (VCCVVVVVCC) against envoyait's 8 (VCCVVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
envoyaient
8 ch
envoyait

Ear matches; page differs - envoyaient and envoyait

This is the hard kind. envoyaient and envoyait are pronounced identically (\ɑ̃.vwa.jɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52115, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

envoyaient is recorded at frequency rank #35,504, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.vwa.jɛ\. envoyait is at rank #16,611, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.vwa.jɛ\.

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 52115, this pair ranks #150,067 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of envoyaient vs envoyait

Shared letters: aeinotvy. Private to "envoyaient": -. Private to "envoyait": -.

"envoyaient" · 10 letters · shape VCCVVVVVCC  ·  "envoyait" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • envoyaient ← ennvoyaient · enovyaient · envoayient · envoyaeint · envoyaiennt · envoyaientt · envoyaietn · envoyainet
  • envoyait ← ennvoyait · enovyait · envoayit · envoyaitt · envoyati · envoyiat · envoyyait · envvoyait

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "envoyaient" for "envoyait" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɑ̃.vwa.jɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "envoyaient" vs "envoyait" - which ranks higher?
"envoyait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,611 in our French list, against #35,504 for "envoyaient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"envoyaient" and "envoyait" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "envoyaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "envoyait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #150,067 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "envoyaient" and "envoyait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "envoyaient vs envoyais". 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 #150,067 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