excitevsexhibeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,786
“excite” frequency rank
#37,326
“exhibe” frequency rank
51112
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature excite exhibe
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de exciter. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de exhiber.

Where the eye mixes excite and exhibe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. excite and exhibe follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
excite
6 ch
exhibe

Look-alike desk: excite vs exhibe

A purely visual mix-up. excite (\ɛk.sit\) and exhibe (\ɛɡ.zib\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51112, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

excite is recorded at frequency rank #13,786, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛk.sit\. exhibe is at rank #37,326, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.zib\.

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 51112, this pair ranks #157,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of excite vs exhibe

Shared letters: eix. Private to "excite": ct. Private to "exhibe": bh.

"excite" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "exhibe" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • excite ← ecxite · exccite · exciet · excitte · exctie · exicte · exxcite · xecite
  • exhibe ← ehxibe · exhbie · exhhibe · exhibbe · exhieb · exihbe · exxhibe · xehibe

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "excite" and "exhibe" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɛk.sit\ versus \ɛɡ.zib\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "excite" or "exhibe"?
"excite" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,786 in our French list, against #37,326 for "exhibe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "excite" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exhibe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "excite" and "exhibe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exhib vs exhibe". 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 #157,491 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