Which to use
“mettais” and “mettait” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,417
- “mettais” frequency rank
- #6,631
- “mettait” frequency rank
- 23048
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mettais | mettait |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de mettre. | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de mettre. |
Same sound, different letters: mettais vs mettait
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. mettais and mettait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Ear matches; page differs - mettais and mettait
This is the hard kind. mettais and mettait are pronounced identically (\mɛ.tɛ\) 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 “mettais” becomes t in “mettait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23048, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mettais is recorded at frequency rank #16,417, classified as averb, pronounced \mɛ.tɛ\. mettait is at rank #6,631, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɛ.tɛ\.
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 23048, this pair ranks #354,661 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of mettais vs mettait
Shared letters: aeimt. Private to "mettais": s. Private to "mettait": -.
"mettais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC · "mettait" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "mettais" and "mettait" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "mettais" or "mettait" show up more?
Useful next steps
"mettais" and "mettait" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "mettais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mettait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #354,661 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mettais" and "mettait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mettais vs montais". 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 #354,661 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.