Which to use
“payaient” and “payais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,070
- “payaient” frequency rank
- #43,592
- “payais” frequency rank
- 72662
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | payaient | payais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de payer. | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de payer. |
Same sound, different letters: payaient vs payais
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. payaient runs 8 letters (CVVVVVCC) against payais's 6 (CVVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - payaient and payais
This is the hard kind. payaient and payais are pronounced identically (\pɛ.jɛ\) 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 72662, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
payaient is recorded at frequency rank #29,070, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛ.jɛ\. payais is at rank #43,592, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɛ.jɛ\.
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 72662, this pair ranks #43,223 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of payaient vs payais
Shared letters: aipy. Private to "payaient": ent. Private to "payais": s.
"payaient" · 8 letters · shape CVVVVVCC · "payais" · 6 letters · shape CVVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "payaient" and "payais" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "payaient" or "payais" show up more?
Useful next steps
"payaient" and "payais" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "payaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "payais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #43,223 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "payaient" and "payais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "payais vs payons". 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 #43,223 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.