mettraientvsmettraisConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#35,157
“mettraient” frequency rank
#14,980
“mettrais” frequency rank
50137
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mettraient mettrais
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du conditionnel de mettre. Première personne du singulier du conditionnel de mettre.

Same sound, different letters: mettraient vs mettrais

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. mettraient runs 10 letters (CVCCCVVVCC) against mettrais's 8 (CVCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
mettraient
8 ch
mettrais

Same sound, different spelling - mettraient / mettrais

This is the hard kind. mettraient and mettrais are pronounced identically (\mɛ.tʁɛ\) 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 50137, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mettraient is recorded at frequency rank #35,157, classified as averb, pronounced \mɛ.tʁɛ\. mettrais is at rank #14,980, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɛ.tʁɛ\.

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 50137, this pair ranks #165,015 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mettraient vs mettrais

Shared letters: aeimrt. Private to "mettraient": n. Private to "mettrais": s.

"mettraient" · 10 letters · shape CVCCCVVVCC  ·  "mettrais" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mettraient ← emttraient · metraient · metrtaient · mettarient · mettraeint · mettraiennt · mettraientt · mettraietn
  • mettrais ← emttrais · metrais · metrtais · mettaris · mettraiss · mettrasi · mettrias · mettrrais

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mettraient" and "mettrais" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɛ.tʁɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "mettraient" vs "mettrais" - which ranks higher?
"mettrais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,980 in our French list, against #35,157 for "mettraient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mettraient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mettrais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #165,015 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mettraient" and "mettrais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mettrais vs mettras". 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 #165,015 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