Which to use
“essayer” and “essuyé” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #963
- “essayer” frequency rank
- #24,580
- “essuyé” frequency rank
- 25543
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | essayer | essuyé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mettre à l’essai ; vérifier le bon fonctionnement. | Participe passé masculin singulier de essuyer. |
Where the eye mixes essayer and essuyé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. essayer runs 7 letters (VCCVVVC) against essuyé's 6 (VCCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: essayer vs essuyé
A purely visual mix-up. essayer (\e.se.je\) and essuyé (\e.sɥi.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 25543, 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\. essuyé is at rank #24,580, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɥi.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 25543, this pair ranks #340,275 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of essayer vs essuyé
Shared letters: esy. Private to "essayer": ar. Private to "essuyé": ué.
"essayer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC · "essuyé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- essayer ← esasyer · esayer · essaeyr · essayerr · essayre · essayyer · essyaer · sesayer
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "essayer" and "essuyé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "essayer" or "essuyé" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "essayer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "essuyé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #340,275 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "essayer" and "essuyé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essay vs essuyé". 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 #340,275 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.