éprouvevséprouventTell them apart

Which to use

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

#11,509
“éprouve” frequency rank
#24,454
“éprouvent” frequency rank
35963
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature éprouve éprouvent
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de éprouver. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de éprouver.

Same sound, different letters: éprouve vs éprouvent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. éprouve runs 7 letters (VCCVVCV) against éprouvent's 9 (VCCVVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
éprouve
9 ch
éprouvent

Homophone desk: éprouve vs éprouvent

This is the hard kind. éprouve and éprouvent are pronounced identically (\e.pʁuv\) 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 extra letter(s) - “éprouve” sits inside “éprouvent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35963, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

éprouve is recorded at frequency rank #11,509, classified as averb, pronounced \e.pʁuv\. éprouvent is at rank #24,454, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.pʁuv\.

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 35963, this pair ranks #272,945 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of éprouve vs éprouvent

Shared letters: eopruvé. Private to "éprouve": -. Private to "éprouvent": nt.

"éprouve" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVCV  ·  "éprouvent" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "éprouve" for "éprouvent" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\e.pʁuv\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "éprouve" vs "éprouvent" - which ranks higher?
"éprouve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,509 in our French list, against #24,454 for "éprouvent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "éprouve" / "éprouvent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "éprouve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "éprouvent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #272,945 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "éprouve" and "éprouvent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "éprouvent vs éprouvette". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #272,945 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