essayentvsessayerTell them apart

Which to use

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

#13,376
“essayent” frequency rank
#963
“essayer” frequency rank
14339
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature essayent essayer
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de essayer. Mettre à l’essai ; vérifier le bon fonctionnement.

Where the eye mixes essayent and essayer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. essayent runs 8 letters (VCCVVVCC) against essayer's 7 (VCCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
essayent
7 ch
essayer

Visual trap between essayent and essayer

A purely visual mix-up. essayent (\e.sɛj\) and essayer (\e.se.je\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14339, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

essayent is recorded at frequency rank #13,376, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛj\. essayer is at rank #963, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.se.je\.

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 14339, this pair ranks #397,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of essayent vs essayer

Shared letters: aesy. Private to "essayent": nt. Private to "essayer": r.

"essayent" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCC  ·  "essayer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • essayentesasyent · esayent · essaeynt · essayennt · essayentt · essayetn · essaynet · essayyent
  • essayeresasyer · esayer · essaeyr · essayerr · essayre · essayyer · essyaer · sesayer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "essayent" and "essayer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\e.sɛj\ versus \e.se.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "essayent" vs "essayer" - which ranks higher?
"essayer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #963 in our French list, against #13,376 for "essayent". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "essayent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "essayer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #397,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "essayent" and "essayer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essayent 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 #397,118 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