Which to use
“essayais” and “essayait” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #17,128
- “essayais” frequency rank
- #12,780
- “essayait” frequency rank
- 29908
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essayais | essayait |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de essayer. | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de essayer. |
Same sound, different letters: essayais vs essayait
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. essayais and essayait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Ear matches; page differs - essayais and essayait
This is the hard kind. essayais and essayait 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 a single letter - s in “essayais” becomes t in “essayait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29908, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essayais is recorded at frequency rank #17,128, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jɛ\. essayait is at rank #12,780, 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 29908, this pair ranks #313,726 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of essayais vs essayait
Shared letters: aeisy. Private to "essayais": -. Private to "essayait": t.
"essayais" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVVC · "essayait" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "essayais" and "essayait" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "essayais" or "essayait"?
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 "essayais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essayait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #313,726 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essayais" and "essayait" 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 #313,726 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.