Which to use
“essayant” and “essayons” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,689
- “essayant” frequency rank
- #12,781
- “essayons” frequency rank
- 20470
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essayant | essayons |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe présent de essayer. | Première personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de essayer. |
Where the eye mixes essayant and essayons
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. essayant and essayons follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses essayant with essayons
A purely visual mix-up. essayant (\e.sɛ.jɑ̃\) and essayons (\e.sɛ.jɔ̃\) 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 20470, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essayant is recorded at frequency rank #7,689, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jɑ̃\. essayons is at rank #12,781, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jɔ̃\.
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 20470, this pair ranks #368,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of essayant vs essayons
Shared letters: aensy. Private to "essayant": t. Private to "essayons": o.
"essayant" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC · "essayons" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "essayant" and "essayons" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "essayant" or "essayons" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "essayant" and "essayons" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "essayant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essayons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #368,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essayant" and "essayons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essayant 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 #368,118 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.