Which to use
“essayage” is a noun and “essaye” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #38,282
- “essayage” frequency rank
- #2,174
- “essaye” frequency rank
- 40456
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essayage | essaye |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action d’essayer. | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de essayer. |
Where the eye mixes essayage and essaye
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. essayage runs 8 letters (VCCVVVCV) against essaye's 6 (VCCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between essayage and essaye
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: essayage is \e.sɛ.jaʒ\ while essaye is \e.sɛj\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 40456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essayage is recorded at frequency rank #38,282, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.sɛ.jaʒ\. essaye is at rank #2,174, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɛj\.
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 40456, this pair ranks #240,364 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of essayage vs essaye
Shared letters: aesy. Private to "essayage": g. Private to "essaye": -.
"essayage" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCV · "essaye" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "essayage" for "essaye" ever safe?
Which is more common, "essayage" or "essaye"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "essayage" and "essaye" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "essayage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essaye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #240,364 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essayage" and "essaye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essayage vs essayée". 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 #240,364 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.