Which to use
“payaient” is a verb and “payement” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,070
- “payaient” frequency rank
- #33,395
- “payement” frequency rank
- 62465
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | payaient | payement |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de payer. | Variante orthographique de paiement. |
Where the eye mixes payaient and payement
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. payaient (CVVVVVCC) and payement (CVVVCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: payaient vs payement
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: payaient is \pɛ.jɛ\ while payement is \pɛ.mɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62465, 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\. payement is at rank #33,395, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛ.mɑ̃\.
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 62465, this pair ranks #86,971 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of payaient vs payement
Shared letters: aenpty. Private to "payaient": i. Private to "payement": m.
"payaient" · 8 letters · shape CVVVVVCC · "payement" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "payaient" and "payement" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "payaient" or "payement" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "payaient" and "payement" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "payaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "payement" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #86,971 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "payaient" and "payement" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "payaient vs payais". 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 #86,971 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.