essayéevsessayesTell them apart

Which to use

“essayée” and “essayes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#39,789
“essayée” frequency rank
#13,377
“essayes” frequency rank
53166
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature essayée essayes
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de essayer. Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de essayer.

Where the eye mixes essayée and essayes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. essayée (VCCVVVV) and essayes (VCCVVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
essayée
7 ch
essayes

Look-alike desk: essayée vs essayes

A purely visual mix-up. essayée (\e.sɛ.je\) and essayes (\e.sɛj\) 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 53166, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

essayée is recorded at frequency rank #39,789, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.je\. essayes is at rank #13,377, 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 53166, this pair ranks #142,610 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of essayée vs essayes

Shared letters: aesy. Private to "essayée": é. Private to "essayes": -.

"essayée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVV  ·  "essayes" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • essayes ← esasyes · esayes · essaeys · essayess · essayse · essayyes · essyaes · sesayes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "essayée" for "essayes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.sɛ.je\ versus \e.sɛj\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "essayée" vs "essayes" - which ranks higher?
"essayes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,377 in our French list, against #39,789 for "essayée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "essayée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "essayes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #142,610 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "essayée" and "essayes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essay 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 #142,610 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list