Which to use
“essaient” and “étaient” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,161
- “essaient” frequency rank
- #238
- “étaient” frequency rank
- 9399
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essaient | étaient |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe essayer. | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de être. |
Where the eye mixes essaient and étaient
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: essaient vs étaient
A purely visual mix-up. essaient (\e.sɛ\) and étaient (\e.tɛ\) 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 9399, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essaient is recorded at frequency rank #9,161, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ\. étaient is at rank #238, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.tɛ\.
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 9399, this pair ranks #416,797 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of essaient vs étaient
Shared letters: aeint. Private to "essaient": s. Private to "étaient": é.
"essaient" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC · "étaient" · 7 letters · shape VCVVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- essaient ← esaient · esasient · essaeint · essaiennt · essaientt · essaietn · essainet · essiaent
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "essaient" and "étaient" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "essaient" or "étaient" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "essaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "étaient" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #416,797 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essaient" and "étaient" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "étai vs étaient". 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 #416,797 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.