Which to use
“essayer” and “essayera” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #963
- “essayer” frequency rank
- #41,279
- “essayera” frequency rank
- 42242
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essayer | essayera |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mettre à l’essai ; vérifier le bon fonctionnement. | Troisième personne du singulier du futur de essayer. |
Where the eye mixes essayer and essayera
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. essayer runs 7 letters (VCCVVVC) against essayera's 8 (VCCVVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses essayer with essayera
A purely visual mix-up. essayer (\e.se.je\) and essayera (\e.sɛ.jə.ʁa\) 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 extra letter(s) - “essayer” sits inside “essayera”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42242, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
essayer is recorded at frequency rank #963, classified as averb, pronounced \e.se.je\. essayera is at rank #41,279, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jə.ʁa\.
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 42242, this pair ranks #227,108 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of essayer vs essayera
Shared letters: aersy. Private to "essayer": -. Private to "essayera": -.
"essayer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC · "essayera" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "essayer" and "essayera" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "essayer" vs "essayera" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "essayer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essayera" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #227,108 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essayer" and "essayera" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essayera 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 #227,108 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.