Which to use
“occupait” is a verb and “occupants” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,207
- “occupait” frequency rank
- #11,814
- “occupants” frequency rank
- 21021
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | occupait | occupants |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de occuper. | Masculin pluriel de occupant. |
Where the eye mixes occupait and occupants
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. occupait runs 8 letters (VCCVCVVC) against occupants's 9 (VCCVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses occupait with occupants
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: occupait is \o.ky.pɛ\ while occupants is \ɔ.ky.pɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21021, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
occupait is recorded at frequency rank #9,207, classified as averb, pronounced \o.ky.pɛ\. occupants is at rank #11,814, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.ky.pɑ̃\.
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 21021, this pair ranks #365,263 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of occupait vs occupants
Shared letters: acoptu. Private to "occupait": i. Private to "occupants": ns.
"occupait" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVVC · "occupants" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "occupait" for "occupants" ever safe?
Frequency check: "occupait" vs "occupants" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "occupait" and "occupants" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "occupait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "occupants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #365,263 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "occupait" and "occupants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "occupais vs occupants". 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 #365,263 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.