était vs exact, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#64
“était” frequency rank: #4,147
“exact” frequency rank: 4211
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	était	exact
Definition	Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait du verbe être.	Qui suit rigoureusement la vérité, la convention.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set était and exact apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch

était

5 ch

exact

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: était is \e.tɛ\ while exact is \ɛɡ.zakt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4211, 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\. exact is at rank #4,147, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛɡ.zakt\.

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 4211, this pair ranks #432,183 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of était vs exact

Shared letters: at. Private to "était": ié. Private to "exact": cex.

"était" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC · "exact" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

exact ← eaxct · exacct · exactt · exatc · excat · exxact · xeact

Frequency comparison

était#64

exact#4,147

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

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

"était" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #64 in our French list, against #4,147 for "exact". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering était vs exact

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “était”; for an adjective, it's “exact”.
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