expliquaisvsexpliquaitTell them apart

Which to use

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

#42,867
“expliquais” frequency rank
#11,965
“expliquait” frequency rank
54832
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature expliquais expliquait
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de expliquer. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de expliquer.

Same sound, different letters: expliquais vs expliquait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters.

10 ch
expliquais
10 ch
expliquait

Homophone desk: expliquais vs expliquait

This is the hard kind. expliquais and expliquait are pronounced identically (\ɛk.spli.kɛ\) 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 a single letter - s in “expliquais” becomes t in “expliquait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54832, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

expliquais is recorded at frequency rank #42,867, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛk.spli.kɛ\. expliquait is at rank #11,965, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛk.spli.kɛ\.

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 54832, this pair ranks #131,384 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of expliquais vs expliquait

Shared letters: aeilpqux. Private to "expliquais": s. Private to "expliquait": t.

"expliquais" · 10 letters · shape VCCCVCVVVC  ·  "expliquait" · 10 letters · shape VCCCVCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • expliquaisepxliquais · exlpiquais · expilquais · expliqauis · expliqquais · expliquaiss · expliquasi · expliquias
  • expliquaitepxliquait · exlpiquait · expilquait · expliqauit · expliqquait · expliquaitt · expliquati · expliquiat

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "expliquais" and "expliquait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛk.spli.kɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "expliquais" or "expliquait"?
"expliquait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,965 in our French list, against #42,867 for "expliquais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "expliquais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "expliquait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #131,384 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "expliquais" and "expliquait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "expliquaient vs expliquais". 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 #131,384 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