était vs étuis, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“était” is a verb and “étuis” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#64
“était” frequency rank: #47,703
“étuis” frequency rank: 47767
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	était	étuis
Definition	Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait du verbe être.	Pluriel de étui.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set était and étuis apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch

était

5 ch

étuis

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: était is \e.tɛ\ while étuis is \e.tɥi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47767, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

était is recorded at frequency rank #64, classified as averb, pronounced \e.tɛ\. étuis is at rank #47,703, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.tɥi\.

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 47767, this pair ranks #184,304 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of était vs étuis

Shared letters: ité. Private to "était": a. Private to "étuis": su.

"était" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC · "étuis" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC

Frequency comparison

était#64

étuis#47,703

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "était" and "étuis" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "était" is a verb and "étuis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "était" or "étuis"?

"était" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #64 in our French list, against #47,703 for "étuis". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering était vs étuis

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “était”; for a noun, it's “étuis”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “était” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable