exigevsexigentWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#4,858
“exige” frequency rank
#11,045
“exigent” frequency rank
15903
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exige exigent
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de exiger. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de exiger.

Same sound, different letters: exige vs exigent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
exige
7 ch
exigent

Ear matches; page differs - exige and exigent

This is the hard kind. exige and exigent are pronounced identically (\ɛɡ.ziʒ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “exige” sits inside “exigent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15903, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exige is recorded at frequency rank #4,858, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.ziʒ\. exigent is at rank #11,045, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.ziʒ\.

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 15903, this pair ranks #390,323 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of exige vs exigent

Shared letters: egix. Private to "exige": -. Private to "exigent": nt.

"exige" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "exigent" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • exigeeixge · exgie · exieg · exigge · exxige · xeige
  • exigenteixgent · exgient · exiegnt · exigennt · exigentt · exigetn · exiggent · exignet

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "exige" and "exigent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛɡ.ziʒ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "exige" vs "exigent" - which ranks higher?
"exige" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,858 in our French list, against #11,045 for "exigent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"exige" and "exigent" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "exige" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exigent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #390,323 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exige" and "exigent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exigent vs exigez". 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 #390,323 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