renonçantvsrenoncentWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: renonçant is a adjective, renoncent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“renonçant” is an adjective and “renoncent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,688
“renonçant” frequency rank
#27,596
“renoncent” frequency rank
63284
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature renonçant renoncent
Definition Qui renonce. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de renoncer.

Where the eye mixes renonçant and renoncent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. renonçant and renoncent follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
renonçant
9 ch
renoncent

Visual trap between renonçant and renoncent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: renonçant is \ʁe.nɔ̃.sɑ̃\ while renoncent is \ʁə.nɔ̃s\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63284, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

renonçant is recorded at frequency rank #35,688, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁe.nɔ̃.sɑ̃\. renoncent is at rank #27,596, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.nɔ̃s\.

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 63284, this pair ranks #82,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of renonçant vs renoncent

Shared letters: enort. Private to "renonçant": aç. Private to "renoncent": c.

"renonçant" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCC  ·  "renoncent" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • renoncent ← ernoncent · rennocent · rennoncent · renocnent · renonccent · renoncennt · renoncentt · renoncetn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "renonçant" for "renoncent" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "renonçant" is an adjective and "renoncent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "renonçant" or "renoncent" show up more?
"renoncent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,596 in our French list, against #35,688 for "renonçant". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "renonçant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "renoncent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #82,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "renonçant" and "renoncent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "renonçait vs renonçant". 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 #82,763 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