installentvsinstallèrentWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#14,061
“installent” frequency rank
#46,823
“installèrent” frequency rank
60884
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature installent installèrent
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de installer. Troisième personne du pluriel du passé simple de installer.

Where the eye mixes installent and installèrent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 10 letters in sequence. installent runs 10 letters (VCCCVCCVCC) against installèrent's 12 (VCCCVCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
installent
12 ch
installèrent

Visual trap between installent and installèrent

A purely visual mix-up. installent (\ɛ̃s.tal\) and installèrent (\ɛ̃s.ta.lɛʁ\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60884, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

installent is recorded at frequency rank #14,061, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃s.tal\. installèrent is at rank #46,823, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃s.ta.lɛʁ\.

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 60884, this pair ranks #95,271 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of installent vs installèrent

Shared letters: aeilnst. Private to "installent": -. Private to "installèrent": rè.

"installent" · 10 letters · shape VCCCVCCVCC  ·  "installèrent" · 12 letters · shape VCCCVCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • installent ← innstallent · insatllent · insstallent · instalelnt · instalent · installennt · installentt · installetn

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "installent" and "installèrent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɛ̃s.tal\ versus \ɛ̃s.ta.lɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "installent" or "installèrent"?
"installent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,061 in our French list, against #46,823 for "installèrent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "installent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "installèrent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #95,271 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "installent" and "installèrent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "installent vs installes". 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 #95,271 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