évitervsévitesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#862
“éviter” frequency rank
#31,315
“évites” frequency rank
32177
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature éviter évites
Definition Échapper, se soustraire à quelque chose de nuisible, de désagréable. Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de éviter.

Where the eye mixes éviter and évites

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. éviter and évites follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
éviter
6 ch
évites

Visual trap between éviter and évites

A purely visual mix-up. éviter (\e.vi.te\) and évites (\e.vit\) 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 a single letter - r in “éviter” becomes s in “évites”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32177, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

éviter is recorded at frequency rank #862, classified as averb, pronounced \e.vi.te\. évites is at rank #31,315, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.vit\.

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 32177, this pair ranks #298,988 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of éviter vs évites

Shared letters: eitvé. Private to "éviter": r. Private to "évites": s.

"éviter" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "évites" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "éviter" for "évites" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.vi.te\ versus \e.vit\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "éviter" vs "évites" - which ranks higher?
"éviter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #862 in our French list, against #31,315 for "évites". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "éviter" and "évites" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "éviter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "évites" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #298,988 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "éviter" and "évites" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "édits vs évites". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #298,988 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