laissaientvslaissaitWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#19,577
“laissaient” frequency rank
#8,260
“laissait” frequency rank
27837
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laissaient laissait
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de laisser. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de laisser.

Same sound, different letters: laissaient vs laissait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.

10 ch
laissaient
8 ch
laissait

Ear matches; page differs - laissaient and laissait

This is the hard kind. laissaient and laissait are pronounced identically (\lɛ.sɛ\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27837, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

laissaient is recorded at frequency rank #19,577, classified as averb, pronounced \lɛ.sɛ\. laissait is at rank #8,260, tagged as averb, pronounced \lɛ.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 27837, this pair ranks #326,474 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of laissaient vs laissait

Shared letters: ailst. Private to "laissaient": en. Private to "laissait": -.

"laissaient" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCVVVCC  ·  "laissait" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • laissaientalissaient · laisaient · laisasient · laissaeint · laissaiennt · laissaientt · laissaietn · laissainet
  • laissaitalissait · laisait · laisasit · laissaitt · laissati · laissiat · lasisait · liassait

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "laissaient" and "laissait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\lɛ.sɛ\), 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, "laissaient" or "laissait"?
"laissait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,260 in our French list, against #19,577 for "laissaient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "laissaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "laissait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #326,474 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laissaient" and "laissait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laissaient vs laissèrent". 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 #326,474 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