Which to use
“essai” is a noun and “essaya” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,277
- “essai” frequency rank
- #27,804
- “essaya” frequency rank
- 30081
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essai | essaya |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Test, examen, épreuve de solidité, de pérennité, d’adéquation, de potabilité, de comestibilité, etc. | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de essayer. |
Where the eye mixes essai and essaya
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. essai runs 5 letters (VCCVV) against essaya's 6 (VCCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: essai vs essaya
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: essai is \e.sɛ\ while essaya is \e.sɛ.ja\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30081, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essai is recorded at frequency rank #2,277, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.sɛ\. essaya is at rank #27,804, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.ja\.
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 30081, this pair ranks #312,589 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of essai vs essaya
Shared letters: aes. Private to "essai": i. Private to "essaya": y.
"essai" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV · "essaya" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "essai" and "essaya" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "essai" or "essaya" show up more?
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 "essai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essaya" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #312,589 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essai" and "essaya" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "España vs essaya". 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 #312,589 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.