exerçavsexerçaitConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#32,813
“exerça” frequency rank
#27,057
“exerçait” frequency rank
59870
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exerça exerçait
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de exercer. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de exercer.

Where the eye mixes exerça and exerçait

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. exerça runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against exerçait's 8 (VCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
exerça
8 ch
exerçait

Why the eye confuses exerça with exerçait

A purely visual mix-up. exerça (\ɛɡ.zɛʁ.sa\) and exerçait (\ɛɡ.zɛʁ.sɛ\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “exerça” sits inside “exerçait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59870, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exerça is recorded at frequency rank #32,813, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.sa\. exerçait is at rank #27,057, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.sɛ\.

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 59870, this pair ranks #100,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of exerça vs exerçait

Shared letters: aerxç. Private to "exerça": -. Private to "exerçait": it.

"exerça" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "exerçait" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "exerça" for "exerçait" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɛɡ.zɛʁ.sa\ versus \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.sɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "exerça" vs "exerçait" - which ranks higher?
"exerçait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,057 in our French list, against #32,813 for "exerça". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "exerça" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exerçait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #100,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exerça" and "exerçait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exerça vs exercera". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #100,758 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