Which to use
“essayaient” and “essayais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,995
- “essayaient” frequency rank
- #17,128
- “essayais” frequency rank
- 43123
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essayaient | essayais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de essayer. | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de essayer. |
Same sound, different letters: essayaient vs essayais
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. essayaient runs 10 letters (VCCVVVVVCC) against essayais's 8 (VCCVVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - essayaient and essayais
This is the hard kind. essayaient and essayais are pronounced identically (\e.sɛ.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 43123, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essayaient is recorded at frequency rank #25,995, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jɛ\. essayais is at rank #17,128, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.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 43123, this pair ranks #220,448 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of essayaient vs essayais
Shared letters: aeisy. Private to "essayaient": nt. Private to "essayais": -.
"essayaient" · 10 letters · shape VCCVVVVVCC · "essayais" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- essayaient ← esasyaient · esayaient · essaayient · essayaeint · essayaiennt · essayaientt · essayaietn · essayainet
- essayais ← esasyais · esayais · essaayis · essayaiss · essayasi · essayias · essayyais · essyaais
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "essayaient" for "essayais" ever safe?
Which is more common, "essayaient" or "essayais"?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "essayaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essayais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #220,448 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essayaient" and "essayais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essayais vs essayerais". 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 #220,448 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.