essayezvsessuyéTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,913
“essayez” frequency rank
#24,580
“essuyé” frequency rank
28493
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature essayez essuyé
Definition Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de essayer. Participe passé masculin singulier de essuyer.

Where the eye mixes essayez and essuyé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. essayez 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.

7 ch
essayez
6 ch
essuyé

Look-alike desk: essayez vs essuyé

A purely visual mix-up. essayez (\e.sɛ.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 28493, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

essayez is recorded at frequency rank #3,913, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.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 28493, this pair ranks #322,431 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of essayez vs essuyé

Shared letters: esy. Private to "essayez": az. Private to "essuyé": ué.

"essayez" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC  ·  "essuyé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • essayez ← esasyez · esayez · essaeyz · essayezz · essayyez · essayze · essyaez · sesayez

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "essayez" and "essuyé" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\e.sɛ.je\ versus \e.sɥi.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "essayez" or "essuyé"?
"essayez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,913 in our French list, against #24,580 for "essuyé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "essayez" 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 #322,431 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "essayez" 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 #322,431 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