Which to use
“essayait” and “essuyant” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #12,780
- “essayait” frequency rank
- #48,507
- “essuyant” frequency rank
- 61287
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essayait | essuyant |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de essayer. | Participe présent de essuyer. |
Where the eye mixes essayait and essuyant
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: essayait vs essuyant
A purely visual mix-up. essayait (\e.sɛ.jɛ\) and essuyant (\e.sɥi.jɑ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61287, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essayait is recorded at frequency rank #12,780, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jɛ\. essuyant is at rank #48,507, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɥi.jɑ̃\.
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 61287, this pair ranks #93,059 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of essayait vs essuyant
Shared letters: aesty. Private to "essayait": i. Private to "essuyant": nu.
"essayait" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVVC · "essuyant" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "essayait" for "essuyant" ever safe?
Which is more common, "essayait" or "essuyant"?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "essayait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essuyant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #93,059 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essayait" and "essuyant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ennuyant vs essuyant". 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 #93,059 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.