importevsimportentWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#462
“importe” frequency rank
#23,240
“importent” frequency rank
23702
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature importe importent
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de importer. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de importer.

Same sound, different letters: importe vs importent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.

7 ch
importe
9 ch
importent

Same sound, different spelling - importe / importent

This is the hard kind. importe and importent are pronounced identically (\ɛ̃.pɔʁt\) 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) - “importe” sits inside “importent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23702, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

importe is recorded at frequency rank #462, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁt\. importent is at rank #23,240, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁt\.

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 23702, this pair ranks #350,946 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of importe vs importent

Shared letters: eimoprt. Private to "importe": -. Private to "importent": n.

"importe" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV  ·  "importent" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • importeimmporte · imoprte · imporet · imporrte · importte · impotre · impporte · improte
  • importentimmportent · imoprtent · imporetnt · imporrtent · importennt · importentt · importetn · importnet

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "importe" for "importent" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛ̃.pɔʁt\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "importe" or "importent" show up more?
"importe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #462 in our French list, against #23,240 for "importent". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "importe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "importent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #350,946 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "importe" and "importent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "importée vs importent". 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 #350,946 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